1) backup your mysql db using phpmyadmin or something similar
2) backup your entire website folder. I like to tar.gz the whole thing up on the server to make it easier to move about. tar -cvzf mysite.tar.gz mysite_path/
3) copy site to new location and extract
4) create new db on new server
5) open up joomla's configuration.php in a text editor and edit the paths, domains, db username, db password to reflect the new server.
yes, it's kinda like a zip file, only with better compression, and it keeps permissions attributes. really only beneficial if you have shell access to the server you host on as it's a server side thing, and not something you would do over FTP.
Ok I've moved all of the files to the new server space from
www.advancedmindskills.com
, changed the configuration.php file although I'm still referencing the same database as my host hosts it on thier domain it seems as my PHPmyAdmin hostname is mysql8.streamline.net (same as last database and all the information is intact) and I get the following at this address
www.mindskillsgroup.com