i found this article on debianadmin.com which shows you how to transfer files between two ubuntu systems (i.e. a server and your desktop) using scp. enjoy!

copy files securely using scp
http://www.debianadmin.com/administer-your-ubuntu-server-remotely.html

a common need is to be able to copy files between servers you are administering. while you could set up ftp on all of the servers, this is a less-than-ideal and potentially insecure solution. ssh includes within it the capability to copy files using the scp command. this has the added benefit of copying the files over a secure channel along with taking advantage of any key-based authentication you might have already set up.
to copy a file to a remote machine use the following command

scp /path/to/file user@remotehost:/path/to/destination

if you need to copy from the remote host to the local host, reverse the above command

scp user@remotehost:/path/to/file /path/to/destination

if you need to copy an entire directory full of files to a remote location, use the -r argument

scp -r /path/to/directory/ user@remotehost:/path/to/destination/

if you are transferring log files or other highly compressible files, you might benefit from the -C argument. this turns on compression, which, while it will increase the cpu usage during the copy, should also increase the speed in which the file transfers.

use the -l argument to limit how much bandwidth is used. follow -l with the bandwidth you want to use in kilobits per second. so, to transfer a file and limit it to 256 Kbps use the following command

scp -l 256 /path/to/file user@remotehost:/path/to/destination