How to get things done on your web host without shell access

My old web host did not allow me to login to the hosting computer. What I could do was only to upload and manage files via a FTP client. If you have a bunch of HTML pages that needs updating once in a while, this is perfrectly ok. But, for a bit of a lively site (I mean technically -- remember? This is a hobby for me.) you need to do a bit more advanced things time to time. Though not easy, it is not impossible to do most of the things with only FTP available to transfer files back and fourth.

FTP Program

Interactive

If you operate from (i.e. your home computer from where you 'upload' to the hosting compnay) a windows machine, use FileZilla. It is a good graphical FTP client. For Linux, use gFTP, which may already be present in your computer, without you instaling it.

I often use command-line tools to do various computer tasks. But, here I don't recommend command-line FTP client over the above two programs -- FTP protocol is silly enough as it is (in present day's terms) without complicating it further by using it by typing each command!!