Using Fetch

Fetch is a Macintosh program used for transferring files. These files can be text, music, photographs, lines of code, etc. Files can be sent from your computer as well as received from any computer that supports File Transfer Protocol (FTP), the same protocol that Fetch uses.

For extensive information on FTP, please see the article A Quick Introduction To FTP in the January/February edition of the newletter, The A3C Connection.

To start Fetch, open the Fetch folder. Notice that the folder contains a Fetch Help icon; Fetch Help can only be opened through the Help pull-down menu once Fetch itself is open. The help section is comprehensive and highly recommended, check here for answers about the use of Fetch. There are also two other items in the Fetch folder. The Bookmarks document holds a list of FTP sites from around the world; you can also add your own bookmarks. The file, Scripts, is for Apple Talk scripts: macros you write in Apple Talk to make your computer perform certain functions.

After opening the Fetch folder, open Fetch. A dialog box will appear with the title New Connection.

The Host field is for the machine to which you are connecting.

Type your userid or netid in the User ID field, unless you are logging in as "anonymous" for anonymous FTP; anonymous FTP is used to allow individuals access to a public FTP site without any need for an account. Many sites offer anonymous FTP as a way of distributing software to their clients.

The Password field is self-explanatory (your e-mail address, jdoe1@uic.edu, is typically used as the password for anonymous FTP).

The Directory field is used to specify the initial directory you would like to access in a given FTP site; otherwise, you will be in the default directory specified by the site administrator.

Short Cuts is a pull down menu that lists a few popular Macintosh FTP sites on the Internet.

Downloading files and non-anonymous FTP:

The primary use of FTP is to download and upload files between a PC or Macintosh, and an account on a remote computer.

Perhaps you want to download your WWW homepage so that you can edit it in a web editor and WordPerfect 3.5; your homepage would be located in the public_html directory in your unix account.

The Host field should contain a machine name; in this example, it will be icarus.cc.uic.edu. The User ID field should contain your login name, and the password field should contain the password for that login. You may also enter a specific directory name in the Directory field.

If you enter a non-existent directory name in the Directory Field you will get an error message that says "no such directory." This is a non-fatal error; you should click on OK to continue.

You would then see a list of the directories that exist in your icarus account. You can open these directories and see more directories or files. For example, if you open public_html, you will get a list of the files that constitute your web pages.

Once you are in the right directory, scroll until you see the file you wish to download. Double-click on it, and you will begin downloading it.

Uploading Files:

Fetch can also be used to upload a document onto an icarus, tigger, or CMS account. This is useful if you have either written a paper with many graphics and want to send your paper over e-mail and retain its graphics, or if you have a digital photograph (jpeg, gif, etc.) you wish to put on your account, perhaps to add to your web page. This is also good for sending an HTML document to a UNIX account.

To begin, open Fetch. For Host put in the machine alias such as icarus.cc.uic.edu or uicvm.cc.uic.edu. Enter your UICVM userid (e.g., U12345), or your tigger or icarus login (jdoe1) for the User ID field, and use that account's password for the Password field.

Once the connection is established, choose Put File. When you are given the familiar Mac File Selection pop-up window, you can choose the documents to be uploaded. To upload a folder, go to Remote on the menu bar and select Put folders and files.

There are also options on how to put your data. Using Raw Data is the safest bet and absolutely essential if you are sending graphics, while Mac Binary II is good for sending Macintosh created documents to other Macintosh users.

Fetch supports three basic formats: automatic, text, and binary as denoted by the radio buttons. The user should choose Text for ASCII documents including web pages in HTML and Binary for programs, graphics, and documents created in a word processing language such as WordPerfect or Word. See the Fetch Help for more details.

Many users download files from anonymous FTP sites, such as ftp.dartmouth.edu or ftp.uic.edu. To connect to UIC's public FTP site, type ftp.uic.edu in the Host field.

For some sites like Dartmouth's, you can leave the User ID field blank. However, for UIC anonymous FTP you must type the word "anonymous" for the User ID field.

For the password the convention for anonymous FTP is to use your full e-mail address. Enter your netid@uic.edu, or an actual account@machine-type address, e.g., jdoe1@icarus.cc.uic.edu. Some anonymous FTP sites don't require that a password be entered.

Let's pretend you want to download the ph program for Macintosh from the UIC public FTP site. The ph application allows you to search for e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and other information about users here at UIC and elsewhere on the Internet (and is included in this kit). Ph uses a standard protocol and ph clients are available on other platforms supported at UIC: CMS (UICVM) and UNIX (tigger and icarus).

The first step would be to log into UIC's FTP site as described in the Getting to ftp.uic.edu section. Once you are logged in, you will automatically be placed in the pub (public) directory; a directory available to anonymous users. You will know that you're in the pub directory when pub appears in the box above the folder list. The pub directory is a list of files available for download at the UIC FTP site.

For this example, find and double-click on the ph folder. The programs in this file are all ph programs for different operating systems. Open the Mac folder and you will get a list of documents and programs contained within it.

Start with the README document. Open this document and a Macintosh dialog box will appear asking you where you want your document placed. Choose the desktop, and your document will appear on the desktop as an icon.

The amount of time it takes to complete downloading text or an application is dependent on file size and modem speed.

Note: To download the entire Macintosh ph program, six separate items, either go back a directory into the ph directory, select the mac folder by clicking on it and select Get File or go to Get Directories and Files.... under Remote in the menu bar.

A useful, albeit more complex, example for a Macintosh user is sending an attachment written with a Macintosh program to a PC user. Your first step is to save your document as a PC compatible file. This involves both the file type and the file name. Choose the Save As option from the file menu of your document's application. Choose to save this file as a PC file in the same application the PC user is going to use to read your attachment. This may not always be available so you must choose the closest option.

For example, if you wanted to send a WordPerfect 6.1 for Macintosh document to a Microsoft Word Windows user, you would probably retain most of your formats saving your document as a WordPerfect 5.1/5.2 Export.

If the Windows/DOS user is using a more obscure word processor, save your document as either an EXTND Export or as a Text document. When saving as text, you will lose virtually all of your formatting but the vast majority of programs and platforms can read a text document.

Next, you must rename your document according to DOS convention and specifications. This means eight or less characters in the name followed by a three letter extension, separated by a period. For example, a Mac WordPerfect user would rename their document from "my great document" to mygrtdoc.wpd

.wpd is the DOS extension for WordPerfect files, .doc is the extension for MSWord, .txt for a text document, etc. The eight letter limit for naming a file is a DOS specification; this will affect DOS users, Windows 3.1 users, and most Windows 95 users (unless they have upgraded both their operating system and their application software).

At this point your document is ready to be sent to your account. The important step now is sending your document as Raw Data. Open a Fetch session to your icarus or tigger account.

Choose the directory in which you want to place your document by clicking its name with your mouse; choose the document you want placed there by selecting Put File and selecting your document. At this point you will get a box that says Put File. Underneath the name of your file is a pull-down menu that says Format. Change the format from MacBinary II to Raw Data by toggling on the arrow. Then Press OK.

After you have closed your Fetch session, login to the account you transfered the file to and use PINE (the email/message system supported by UNIX) to attach the uploaded file and send it.

Be sure to look at your preference settings located in the customized menu bar. When downloading a text file, be sure to set the default editor (found in Preferences) to a program in your Macintosh such as MS Word or WordPerfect. Please take a look at the comprehensive Fetch documentation included with the Fetch Program.