I had the same problem with the counter on my site. I then found out that the page the counter was on had to be a .php extension, such as index.php. Then the counter showed up.
I have a mailing list set up and all of my members are just listed in alphabetical order. I didn't set it up that way, that's just how it's listed. I do only have 7 members right now. I don't know if that has anything to do with or not.
try Smart FTP. It's free [or you can purchase the pro version], connects quickly. I love it. You can also change permissions [CHMOD] with it. It uploads mulitiple files by drag and drop.