NetDrive is a Windows utility that lets you treat remote FTP sites as if they were local drives. The first time you connect to an FTP site, you have to create a profile. But once you're connected you can copy files to and from the FTP site using Windows Explorer or any other file explorer of your choosing. No FTP client required. To disconnect from the FTP server, just bring up the NetDrive window again and hit the disconnect button.

You can also configure NetDrive to automatically map an FTP site as a Windows drive every time your computer boots up. This could come in handy if you want to use a file backup utility to automatically back up files to an FTP server, or if you constantly need to copy files to and from your web hosting server.

NetDrive includes profiles for a few anonymous FTP servers including the KDE, GNOME, and FreeBSD projects as well as Adobe, Apple, HP, and Microsoft servers. You can also create your own profiles.

[via Inspect My Gadget]

Part of my day job - like many of you, no doubt - involves making sure that a number of folders on my network are backed up, syncedd, uploaded, and otherwise maintained. After experimenting with Fling on my small, home network, it looks like it might just simplify my chores at work, too.

Fling is a tiny download - about 230KB - but it's packed with features. It's built for local, network, and FTP folder synchronization, which can be set to manual, automatic scans at regular intervals, or whenever changes are detected. SSL is supported for FTP transfers. Not sure things are up to date? Run the housekeeping task, and Fling will show you what's out of sync.

Fling will also update folders on your removable USB drives whenever they're connected. Since I use one main desktop to download my portable tools but maintain flash drives for four other people, this really comes in handy. Once I have Fling configured, I just need to plug in a tech's drive and let it sync.

There are two more aspects of Fling that make it admin-friendly. First, it can run as a Windows service to keep things running smoothly even when your workstation is locked Second, it also supports command line arguments - handy for batch scripting and integration with other apps.

Fling is made by NCH, so there's also integrated supported for burning folder via ExpressBurn Free. It's a great little burning app with a similarly small footprint. To install it, just choose "burn folder" from Fling's folder menu and follow the prompts.

Java Web Start apps intrigue me, and I'm still surprised how few I've come across to share - last month's look at MuCommander was the first. If you're interested in an FTP client or server, give CrossFTP a try.

Both apps download and run in a flash. All of the functions I need for most FTP chores are available in the free, basic version: upload, download, site/connection manager, rename, delete, CHMOD. CrossFTP also remembers your browsing history and supports favorites, which makes queueing bulk uploads a breeze.

The server works nicely, and can be set up with minimal fuss. It's extremely configurable and an easy way to quickly provide FTP access to any system's files.

As with MuCommander, memory usage is an issue: the client consumes about 40mb and the server another 70mb. That's substantially more than FileZilla ( 11mb / 5mb ).

The pro version provides additional functionality, like support for SSL and SFTP and the ability to move remote files instead of deleting and re-uploading.

While I'm not going to forsake FileZilla for this one, it's a nice app to bookmark just in case.

I wrote before about DropUpload, a simple utility to handle your FTP uploading chores. It's a nice, lightweight alternative for users that don't need a full-blown client like Filezilla.

Rightload is another great choice. Install it, and Rightload integrates into the Windows right-click context menu. Don't fret about clutter, it only adds a single line.

Right click any file or folder, hover on upload, and your list of FTP servers will appear (SFTP is also supported). Choose the folder to send your file to, and off it goes (or you can queue it up for transfer later).

While it's good and quick, simple uploads, Rightload is not so good at downloading the folder structure from your FTP server. On my server (which hosts a few domains, three Wordpress blogs, and a CubeCart install) it took forever, and then finally timed out.

I'd strongly recommend that you skip the directory synchronize function in favor of setting up directories manually. It's not that much harder, and it's faster.

Once you've got it set up, Righload is a great tool for quickly sending files via FTP. It's freeware, Windows only.

Have you ever looked in a real DIYers toolbox? Or maybe even the toolbox of someone who's pretty handy, but who has a messy streak? So all the hammers might be together, or all the screwdrivers will be together, maybe even with some sort of arrangement as to Phillips or Torx heads... but there is almost inevitably, in some corner compartment of the toolbox, or some drawer (and maybe several of them, even) an area set aside for what amounts to a whole lot of miscellaneous "everything" bits. These pieces might logically be found with hammers, or dry wall tools, or about a million other things... But they aren't quite the same, and they aren't always used in the same manner. So they end up in a big pile, that you hope stays manageable enough you can find them again.

This week's Linux switch, the last of the web development stuff for a bit, is like that compartment. These are all nifty little tools, and great when you need them. But they are mostly small, and have a strange distinction of not always being associated with any one particular type of task.

Some, like FTP programs and plugins, are associated with other programs. But what if you love your editor and hate the uploading functions it has? Image maps can be a nuisance to set up, and we think that's probably part of the reason why you don't see a lot of them. But sometimes, they just fit the project at hand.

And you know how we said we'd go easy on the editors? Seriously, we meant it. However, there's one more editing tool we want to mention that's probably beyond most casual users, but will make Linux users who want to develop SWF9 applications pretty happy. We are not covering it in any great depth, because we are not any sort of whizzes with Flash development -- but we have to point it out. It's been a long time coming!

So welcome to our odds and ends compartment of web tools!

So you've got a new version of a file that you need to upload to an FTP server. Sure, you could fire up a full-blown client like FileZilla, but why bother? DropUpLoad offers elegantly simply uploads in a tiny, portable package. It's a 114k download and only consumes 9mb of memory, and is very different from other FTP clients.

For example, there's no directory browsing: set up your remote server info (including destination directory) and it will appear in your list of FTP servers. Setting up a new site is child's play, and you can clone settings from an existing server - useful, since you'll have to set up multiple profiles if you upload to more than one folder on your server.

Select your target from the drop down, drag a file or folder from your Windows machine into the "drop box," and you're done.

Need to give a customer upload access to your FTP but don't want to give out passwords? Created a "locked" version of DropUpLoad, which limits connections to a single server and hides and encrypts login information inside the generated executable.

Give it a shot, FTP uploads don't get much easier!

[ via Softpedia ]

In many ways, I'm pretty old school. When I learned HTML, I painstakingly handcoded my pages in the esteemed Notepad. Only when I became a master of HTML-fu did I allow myself to try Dreamweaver. (Okay, fine, the ability to buy a license with educational pricing may have had a lot to do with it, too.)

I loved Dreamweaver. One of the things that always made me a little sad when I first tried Linux was that there wasn't a real Dreamweaver-esque type application. Times have changed, however. There are a number of HTML/web development applications out there that are free (as in speech and beer) and feature filled.

But I'd be really amiss if I just mentioned Linux HTML editors in a vacuum. There are a number of tools readily available in repositories that make coding, layout, uploading, and testing easy and (dare I say it) fun.

Because seriously, if it isn't fun, what's the point?

Over the next few weeks we're going to take a look at web development tools in Linux. We'll do a run down of some popular XHTML/HTML editors, FTP and transfer software, and neat little tools for creating content that make some of the drudgery of "back-end" web work less painful.

Flow has been in the works since the days of OS X Tiger, but the freshly released version takes things up a notch with a slick UI and a feature set that takes advantage of the power of Leopard. Flow is an FTP client, a text editor with a useful live preview feature, and a bookmark generator for drag-and-drop uploading. Add tabbed navigation and phenomenal ease-of-use, and it's got everything we want out of a new Leopard app,

Flow does have some neat extras, but first and foremost, it's an FTP client. When we tested it, it smoothly handled multiple connections to FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and even the often-criticized .mac service. The only thing we would have changed about the interface: a "recent connections" button or menu item would be nice. The bookmark button in Flow is easy to find, but sometimes we just forget to use it. Speaking of bookmarks, Flow has a unique feature that lets you save any bookmark as a droplet - a tiny app that quickly uploads anything you drop on it, without even opening Flow itself.

Once you've got some files on the server, Flow really sets itself apart from other FTP apps. You can edit your html and css files on the fly, and watch the results in a live preview. This is amazingly powerful, and saves a lot of time when you just need to make a quick change. Forgot to close an html tag? Don't bother uploading a new copy of the file, just edit it in Flow! It even supports Quick Look, so you can preview images right on the server.

Mocha FTP Server is a nifty little application for Windows Mobile that will turn your PDA or phone into a FTP server. When the application is running, you can access any of the files on your mobile device by typing the device's IP address into a web browser or FTP client. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Once upon a time, it appears that Mocha FTP was a commercial application, but MochaSoft has released the utility as freeware. In order to register the software all you have to do is install the application, click the register button, and enter "freeware" for the license name and 111425 for the license code.

[via SolSie]

Have you ever needed to access an FTP site while using a friend or colleague's computer? In some cases you can just type the URL into Firefox or Internet Explorer, but life's always a lot easier when you're using a full featured FTP client, so your first impulse is probably to download and install a free client like Filezilla.

AnyClient presents another option. It's a browser-based FTP client that can be run from any computer with Java installed. Unlike FireFTP, which is a browser add-on that you need to install before running, you can fire up AnyClient just by visiting a web site.

You can choose to save profiles of sites you visit to your desktop if you want. But the beauty of AnyClient is that you can access it from anywhere. AnyClient supports FTP, FTPS, SFTP and WebDAV protocols. There's also a free cross-platform desktop version available for download.

[via Freeware Genius]

DockDrop is a simple Mac OS X application that lets you easily and quickly upload files to an FTP, WebDAV, or SCP server, with added support for Flickr uploads.

When DockDrop is open, it resides quietly on your dock (hence the name). When you want to upload a file or folder, simply drop the item onto the Dockdrop icon (see again why the name is so apt?). Dockdrop will prompt you for the upload method of your choice, upload the file, and put a URL for your upload on the clipboard, ready for pasting into an email, chat program or website.

Dockdrop offers set-it-and-forget-it functionality: once you enter in your server credentials, Dockdrop will store the settings, so you won't have to enter them again.

One of the added bonuses of DockDrop (besides its simplicity and ease of use) is the Flickr integration. After a simple authentication process, you can drag and drop your images onto DockDrop and they upload seamlessly to your Flickr account.

Dockdrop is free, and requires an Intel Mac with 10.4 or 10.5.

[via AppScout]

It's been 3 years in the making, but FileZilla 3.0 has finally been released. There aren't a lot of new features in this excellent free FTP client. But the code base has been rewritten from the ground up. And here's the best thing. It's now cross-platform. FileZilla 3.0 runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Because this is a total redesign, FileZilla 3 installs to a new default directory. That means you can install FileZilla 3 without uninstalling FileZilla 2. It also means that your settings will not automatically be imported, but there's an easy solution:

• Select "Edit" from the menu
• Click "Import"
• Browse to your Filezilla 2 folder (probably in your Program Files directory).
• Select the file titled FileZilla.xml. This is probably the only file you'll see anyway.

Now your site manager data including FTP sites and passwords should be imported. If you're a Windows user and haven't had a problem with FileZilla 2, there's probably not much reason to upgrade. The file transfer window has new tabs to display queued files, failed transfers, and successful transfers. And that's about it. But future development on FileZilla will likely focus on this version, so it might eventually be a good idea to upgrade.