I'm used to using regular FTP in windows to work on websites. I use dreamweaver as my primary tool and it has FTP built into it. However I need to work on another site now that does not use FTP. I have been instructed to use PUTTY and am able to connect to the server and view the files and edit them with VI, however I am not certain what is the most efficient way to upload/download thee files to my PC so I can work on them and them upload them again. Is this within putty? Is there a more efficient alternative you can recommend? Obviously I'm a linux newbie.

since you have shell access on that machine, you can do it the other way around. install a FTP server on your pc, and fetch the files from there.

Please dont think I'm being arrogant, but DOESNT THAT SEEM ARSE BACKWARDS? Is this really the only way? Again, I dont mean to sound off the wall here, just getting frustrated with the admin of this box.

Go get a copy of WinSCP. This will give you a familiar drag-n-drog interface FTP-like interface to scp.

WinSCP does the trick. Thank you for the tip!

another method can be is use emacs to edit files using tramp mode with tramp you can use ssh to edit files