Is there still a good, free file compression program?
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From: Robert Montgomery on 1 Apr 2010 16:32 Robert Montgomery wrote: > 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 In non-computer terms, "archive" means a place - like a library or museum � to store things. "Archive" doesn't mean "compression", so Apple's previous use of the term "Compress File" makes a lot more sense than "Archive". Robert
From: Jeffrey Goldberg on 1 Apr 2010 16:53 Robert Montgomery wrote: > I think "Create Archive" wasn't effective > enough for my project today because it my 13.5 meg files by only about > 20 percent. One limitation of zip-like archivers is that they compress the individual files first and then put them into an archive. If there is redundancy between files, you get much better compression if you create an archive of uncompressed files and then compress that archive. This is way I prefer things like .tar.gz or .tar.bz2. I'll bet someone has written a tool to do that from a Finder contextual menu instead of having to learn command-line tools, but I've never looked for it. Cheers, -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/ I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts Reply-To address is valid
From: David Rogoff on 1 Apr 2010 17:08 On 2010-04-01 12:14:41 -0700, Robert Montgomery said: > 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. > > Thanks, too, to Gerry and David. One catch, depending on what you need: the compress from finder can't create a zip with a password. For that, you'll need zip in a terminal - specifically 'zip -e' for encrypt. Here's some info: http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl1_zip.htm
From: Wes Groleau on 1 Apr 2010 17:56 On 04-01-2010 12:50, Robert Montgomery wrote: > Is there still a good, free file compression program? Well, it's not exactly free, but I bet you already own Finder. Right click on anything and read the menu. (Control-click if you have no right button.) Another GUI option is 7zip. Command line zip, gzip, bzip2 are free, but they're already installed in most OS X versions. -- Wes Groleau Heroes, Heritage, and History http://UniGen.us/PGV
From: Wes Groleau on 1 Apr 2010 18:01
On 04-01-2010 16:32, Robert Montgomery wrote: > "Archive" doesn't mean "compression", so Apple's previous use of the > term "Compress File" makes a lot more sense than "Archive". You're the second person to say this. I'm confused. My current 10.5.8 is the first one I can remember that said "Compress" All prior versions said "Create archive of" But "archive" makes sense to me. That was a major purpose of zip, was it not? If compression is the main purpose, why are they still using zip instead of one of several more efficient open-source alternatives? -- Wes Groleau Heroes, Heritage, and History http://UniGen.us/PGV |