Is there still a good, free file compression program?
in [Mac Applications]
|
Prev: I miss Classic
Next: Print to pdf broken ?
From: Robert Montgomery on 1 Apr 2010 15:29 David Rogoff wrote: > On 2010-04-01 09:50:18 -0700, Robert Montgomery said: > >> Is there still a good, free file compression program? >> > > Open a terminal and type zip or gzip. All free and built in. Learn the > wonders of Unix! Type 'man gzip' for instructions or Google it for help. Thanks, David. I needn't learn Unix because of the wonder of Control-click > Create Archive of..." Also, the wonder of FTP. I think "Create Archive" wasn't effective enough for my project today because it my 13.5 meg files by only about 20 percent. I ended up using Fetch without compressing. Robert
From: BreadWithSpam on 1 Apr 2010 15:43 Robert Montgomery <info-block(a)northern-data-tech.net> writes: > Also, the wonder of FTP. I think "Create Archive" wasn't effective > enough for my project today because it my 13.5 meg files by only about > 20 percent. I ended up using Fetch without compressing. Depends a lot on the files. Use .zip to compress a JPEG and chances are you won't save anything at all. Use it to compress a plaintext file and you may squash it by 75% or even more. -- Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
From: dorayme on 1 Apr 2010 15:44 In article <Pu6tn.608$z%6.282(a)edtnps83>, Robert Montgomery <info-block(a)northern-data-tech.net> wrote: > Also, the wonder of FTP. I think "Create Archive" wasn't effective > enough for my project today because it my 13.5 meg files by only about > 20 percent. Everything depends on what you are compressing. The idea of this sort of compression is most definitely lossless! If you are compressing things that are already compressed like jpgs, there is no room to move further, the files when unzipped need to be the full quid. If the files to be compressed contain or are TIFFS, for example, the compression can be spectacular. btw. 20% can be useful. Perhaps not in 13.5 MB but it counts for larger... -- dorayme
From: Tom Harrington on 1 Apr 2010 15:52 In article <Bg6tn.607$z%6.144(a)edtnps83>, Robert Montgomery <info-block(a)northern-data-tech.net> wrote: > dorayme wrote: > > In article <e94tn.604$z%6.449(a)edtnps83>, > > Robert Montgomery <info-block(a)northern-data-tech.net> wrote: > > > >> Is there still a good, free file compression program? > > > > I use Finder/File/Create Archive all the time to compress files > > and groups of files on Tiger. > > Thanks, Dorayme. > > That's so spiffy. > > I had wondered for a long time what "Create Archive" meant. It used to be called "compress files" but they changed it. I can only guess that too many people tried using it with JPEGs or MP3s or other non-compressible files, and complained about the lack of compression. -- Tom "Tom" Harrington Independent Mac OS X developer since 2002 http://www.atomicbird.com/
From: Robert Montgomery on 1 Apr 2010 16:22
Tom Harrington wrote: > In article <Bg6tn.607$z%6.144(a)edtnps83>, > Robert Montgomery <info-block(a)northern-data-tech.net> wrote: > >> dorayme wrote: >>> In article <e94tn.604$z%6.449(a)edtnps83>, >>> Robert Montgomery <info-block(a)northern-data-tech.net> wrote: >>> >>>> Is there still a good, free file compression program? >>> I use Finder/File/Create Archive all the time to compress files >>> and groups of files on Tiger. >> Thanks, Dorayme. >> >> That's so spiffy. >> >> I had wondered for a long time what "Create Archive" meant. > > It used to be called "compress files" but they changed it. I can only > guess that too many people tried using it with JPEGs or MP3s or other > non-compressible files, and complained about the lack of compression. If they had had common sense by calling it "Compress File for Emailing", I wouldn't have had to start this thread today. The name of the function would have been self-explanatory, so I would have figured it out on my own years ago. "Create Archive" didn't mean anything to me. "Compress Files" is self-explanatory. And "Compress Files for Emailing" would connect the dots (to Internet use of the files) for people even better. Robert |