Do you own and run your own website? If so, you’ve probably involved yourself in the common habit of revisiting your own pages again and again, from anywhere you have access to the web. Additionally, like most webmasters, you’ve probably caught typos, glitches, broken segments of code, or other errors during these browsing sessions. If you want to make quick changes to resolve these site errors, you can likely do so before you even get back to your home computer — and all you’ll need is FTP access and a NotePad program.
The first thing you’ll need to do is access your website via FTP. This can be done through many desktop environments, including the “connect to server” option in Mac or the Microsoft Explorer interface in Windows, but you can also download free and lightweight FTP programs like FileZilla. Once you’re logged into your server, simply download the HTML file for the page that needs a fix.
Chances are the computer you’re on doesn’t have an advanced web editing program, but does have a standard NotePad program. HTML and CSS files can both be manipulated through NotePad. If you’re really looking to sort through the code effectively, you can even download open source software like NotePad++, which will let you see the code more readily.
Even without an expert-level set of experience in coding, you can browse through the HTML file in text editor, tracking down the text or code segment that needs a tweak. Once you’ve located the appropriate segment of the file, make the change and re-upload the HTML document via FTP. Confirm that you want to overwrite the file, then re-visit the page that had the error. Your fix should be visible, and you will be able to breathe a little easier knowing your site’s minor issue has been resolved.
