is there anyway to put external method files into the extensions directory through Zope?

The reason this is not supported is that this would open up rather large holes in security. For better or worse, relying on filesystem access as the mechanism for getting external methods onto/off of the Zope server empowers the Unix SA to say 'yes' and/or 'no'.

i'm working exclusively through a remote machine. do i need to setup my server to allow me to FTP or access that directory through some other means? shouldn't i be able to do it through ZServer w/ a HTTP PUT?

This would work... IMO, the _best_ solution to this problem is to use ssh (and scp) which are essentially secure (i.e., encrypted) versions of telnet and cp (they do a WHOLE lot more as well). There are Unix and Win32 clients for both (although for some strange reason the Win32 scp doesn't recursively copy :( --Rob