Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!think.com!paperboy!hsdndev!husc6!popvax!conrad From: conrad@popvax.uucp (M20400@c.nobili) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm Subject: Re: Downloading files in one-go? Summary: There ARE better ways -- you have a NETWORK connection... Keywords: Download, ftp, telnet, BYU telnet, HyperFTP, XferIt Message-ID: <6748@husc6.harvard.edu> Date: 12 May 91 14:12:18 GMT References: <2281@diemen.utas.edu.au> Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu Organization: Harvard University, Office for Information Technology Lines: 62 (Tony Lim describes laborious process for telnet-ing from his Mac + to UNIX box so that he can ftp files to UNIX and then again to the Mac and then to decode and decompress -- he wants to know if there is a quick and easy way....) I note from your description that you have a NETWORK connection. I.e., you are using telnet to get from Mac to UNIX, not a serial telecommunications program. Given this nice situation, there are several more optimal things you can do. First, try getting the BYU version of NCSA Telnet. It has an ftp client built in, so you can ftp things directly to your Mac. It works, but that's about the only nice thing one can say about it (there is basically nothing that one could call a user interface...). Note that this will not save you lots of decoding and decompressing, unless you are getting text files or files from another Mac. Actually, I am not sure it does MacBinary -- I rarely use it.... My favorite way of doing this stuff is with HyperFTP. It is a HyperCard stack that implements a nice ftp client. There is a pop-up menu into which you can store frequently used addresses. And you can double-click to download files or change directories. But best of all, it can un-BinHex files on the fly on a download. You no longer have to un-BinHex things! It won't un-StuffIt things or un-Compactor or ... things though. I suppose one could do this in principle. Double-click on a remote file and up comes a save as dialog for (each of) the files IN the archive. Someone please write this! There is another program out there called XferIt which has similar features to HyperFTP. I just got it the other day and tried it out. I have heard others here say that it is really great, but I thought it was awful. I have heard that it is much faster than HyperFTP, but I don't know.... I _really_ don't think I could have set it up incorrectly, btw. What I found is that the directory up- dates _seemed_ to take much longer than with HyperFTP. And it is a neat idea to keep a window around with the contents of a directory that one has previously looked at. The contents of most sites do not change much during one's ftp ses- sion.... But I found it a real drag that the program will go out behind one's back and "freshen up" these listings. This is a problem since you can't do any- thing while this new directory listing is being gotten (nothing in XferIt, any- way). I found that this happened _much_ more frequently than at the five minute intervals at which the documentation claims it will happen -- but maybe my sense of time is confused when I am ftp-ing things.... I hated it, but try it, you may like it.... You can get HyperFTP from sumex as /info-mac/comm/hyperftp-13.hqx (Apple seems to be moving things around currently and I couldn't find it just now on either apple.apple.com or ftp.apple.com). You can get an OLD version of Xfer-It (1.1) in that directory. I have 1.3.1, which should be on mondo.engin.umich.edu, as that is where the author lists his e-mail address in the docs. (My nameserver is freaking out at the moment, so I can't verify the correct path and name....) You should try downloading things with either of these programs from an archive that keeps things in BinHex format to test auto-un-BinHex-ing and from an ar- chive that keeps things in MacBinary format for real ease of downloading.... Try sumex.stanford.edu and rascal.ics.utexas.edu to start.... Hope this is useful to you or others.... +---- C o n r a d C . N o b i l i ----+ | | | Harvard University | Internet: conrad@harvarda.harvard.edu | | Office for Info. Tech. | conrad@popvax.harvard.edu | | Information Services | BITNET: CONRAD AT HARVARDA | | Technical & User Services | CONRAD AT HARVSPHB | | 1730 Cambridge Street | voice: (617) 495-8554 | +---- Cambridge, MA 02138 | fax: (617) 495-0715 ----+