Customers have been emailing their art files thus far, but we have been getting customers who have very large files that can't be sent through an email. We're trying to figure out how to allow customers to upload the files instead to our website.
I am kind of familiar with html, does anyone know of a tutorial out there that explains this? And could it be a risk/threat to allow anyone to upload files to my website?
PHP does have a limit on what size files can be uploaded through an online interface (like a form).
However, this can be overridden in the server settings if you have access to that (like on a dedicated server or friendly shared server host)
If business gets busy enough, you could try the branded version of yousendit.com. It works really well for all size files (up to like 2GB I think). You could also use the free version in the meantime.
Customers have been emailing their art files thus far, but we have been getting customers who have very large files that can't be sent through an email. We're trying to figure out how to allow customers to upload the files instead to our website.
I am kind of familiar with html, does anyone know of a tutorial out there that explains this? And could it be a risk/threat to allow anyone to upload files to my website?
Box.net is a nice inexpensive browser based service that eliminates FTP.
When I was new, it was pretty easy for me to make a 1 gig design on accident, and some Webhosts get very picky about space usage on the server, and upload amounts to the server.
Also, if it's just a link from your homepage, someone might abuse it to store illegal files as well.
If you find a script that only accepts certain types of files, and also stores them in a private location unavailable to the general public, you should be fine. Then all you have to worry about is the designer who made a 1 gig file out of a simple sentence of text, or the like
Depending on your web hosting provider, they may already have a solution for you. A lot of the ones I have used have an administrative panel (cPanel, vDeck and Plesk are the ones I have used) and there are typically a lot of 3rd party web programs and scripts that are free to use, you just have to implement them. You might want to find out from them if 1) there is infact an area such as one of those mentioned 2) what your monthly bandwidth cap is and 3) what your storage space cap is.
Another alternative may be to create a generic FTP account that you can provide to your customers although thinking about it now, it may turn out to be more trouble.
rapidshare.com is another file transfer site to add to Mike's list too.
Another important thing, you should find out what type of server your site is hosted on. Some IIS (Windows) based servers can run PHP scripts but only if they are configured to do so. Some modifications to the scripts may be needed in that type of scenario as well.
Most times, PHP scripts can run with little modification on an Apache (Linux) server.
Most of our customers have no problem just emailing their artwork to us. There are just a few customers here and there who have large files that they can't email.
I will probably just refer them to use yousendit.com or a service provider.
How to allow customers to upload files? 
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