Vamp's mp3 Page - FTP Tutorial

Anyone who is looking for mp3s for a little while, knows that the 90% of the direct mp3 links suck. Most of mp3 direct links pages are made over a night with programs like "mp3 Wolf", by ripping other people pages. Most of these links are usually dead after two or three weeks and you end up getting messages like "File not found" all the time. If you really want to get some mp3s you have to download them from FTP sites, using an FTP client. Although downloading from FTP isn't just a piece of cake, at least this way, if you try, you always get results.

Although, by clicking the links to the FTP sites, it is possible to download mp3s from your web browser, you are going to fail in 99% of the cases. You may have tasted this experience, if you have clicked the results of any mp3 search engine. The reason for this is that most of the FTP sites are more or less busy. The only way to successfully download from FTP is to use an FTP client. So first of all download such a client. The best place to search is Twocous, but I recommend to use cuteFTP which is one of the best FTP programs.

The use of an FTP client is very easy. First you must supply some information about the site you want to connect.

URL of the site	Could be an IP address (four numbers separated by dots) or a normal URL. Make sure that you want type "ftp://" in front of the URL and no spaces in the beginning or in the end.
Username & Password	If you want to login as anonymous just choose this option. This is the same like using as "anonymous" username and an e-mail address (i.e. user@host.com) as password. However, if normal login is required uncheck the anonymous option and give the user name and password. In my site list you can find them in the format "username:password".
Port	The default port number is 21. If no port is given it means that you have to use the default port. All the FTP clients are using this pot number, unless you specify another.

Generally you can also find this information from every FTP link. Right-click over the link and select "Copy Shortcut" for IE or "Copy Link Location" for Netscape and then paste it somewhere (i.e. in notepad). The format of the FTP links is:

If username and password is missing, it means that you login as anonymous. If the port is missing, it means the site uses the default port (21).

In cuteFTP you can supply them either in the "Quick Connect" requester or in the "Site Manager". After you have supplied all this information you are ready to connect, but first read below, because things aren't always that simple.

1st. If you get a message "Can't resolve IP address" (or something like this) from the program, you have mistyped the URL or IP address of the site. Be careful to type just the address of the site without the word "ftp://" in front of it. Also remove any spaces from the beginning and the end.

2nd. If you see "Can't connect. Waiting to try again", means that the server is down. In this case stop the program from retrying. Don't hurry to judge this site as "old" and remove it from your bookmarks list. It is very possible that the site is temporary down or it is not working 24 hours a day but only some hours. This is usual with the mp3 sites. Try again later and, if it is still not working, try another day.

3rd. If you see "Socket connected, waiting for welcome message" this means that the site IS working. After that the program sends the user name and the password. If the site is not busy, you have successfully logged in. Else you get something like "No more users allowed" or "Password not accepted" which means that you haven't logged in. Check your user name and password and if they are correct, the reason you can't login is because the site is busy. In this case you must put the FTP client to retry, until it successfully logins. Details on how to connect to a busy site are below.

1.	Set the time between retries, in the setup or options dialog of the program, to 30 seconds or more.
2.	Set the number of retries to maximum allowed
3.	Set the program to play a sound, when it successfully logins.
4.	Tell the program to connect.

After you have done these watch the first attempt of the program to connect. If you see a message telling "Socket connected, waiting for welcome message" means that the site is working. If you don't see this, but you get something like "Can't login Waiting to try again", means that the site is not working, so stop the program from trying (details above). From here whether you are going to successfully login, or the site will return some message like "Password not accepted" or "No more users allowed under your name and password" or similar messages. In this case the site is busy and you have to let the program keep trying to connect.

Meanwhile don't stand and watch the program. Open another instance of the FTP client and tell it to connect to another server. Do this for every site you like. The amount of data that are transferred through your line while the programs are trying to connect is very small that practically don't bother any other transfers (i.e. downloading from somewhere else). Also very few resources of your system are used. So in the meantime do whatever you like with you computer and when one of the clients manages to login, it will play the sound you have set. This way you will be connected to an even busy site without breaking your nerves.