Quick Guide to File Compression
If you have owned your computer for a year or more, you
have probably run into the problem of large files, and hard-drive space. The
salesman’s promise, “You’ll never use all the space on this computer!”, sounds
more and more like so much advertising. Once you actually start to use the
computer for more than just the occasional game of solitaire, all of the
programs, video games, and assorted emails begin to stack up. Before you know
it you may start getting warning messages like, “Hard-drive space is running
low. Do you want to clean up some files on your computer?”
Or perhaps you’ve run into a situation where you’ve spent
hours working on a report containing lots of graphics, and charts, and some
spreadsheets. You go to copy the report to a disk or send it as an email
attachment, only to find that it has morphed into a 15 meg monster of a file.
The best way to combat these kinds of file space problems
is to utilize a simple compression program. The function of a compression
program is to take large files and make them smaller without changing, or
losing any information in the file. It does this by using a complex set of
algorithms and equations that take the bits of information in the file, reduce
the size, and then remember how to put the files back together. Since a file is
made up of 1000’s of bits of information it can be reduced from 1000’s down to
100’s without losing information because an algorithm can predict where those
other bits WILL go when the file is uncompressed later.
Now of course, like everything in the computer world,
there are many different compression programs out there to choose from. Even
though each program uses different algorithms for their compression, they all
compress files about the same. A typical compression rate for a 100k Word
document containing all text is about 60%-90% of the original file size. With
this in mind, choosing your own favorite compression utility is usually a
matter of personal taste, and ease of use.
One of the most common, and user-friendly programs is
called PKZIP. This program is freely available from www.PKware.com. It’s user
interface combines functionality, with ease of use by putting the compression
terminology into easy to understand terms.
Another highly used compression utility is called RAR.
The RAR compression format is an extremely good one for packing together large
programs into one very small file. One of the best features about this
particular program is it’s ability to take extremely large files, and spread
them out over several smaller files which can be stored on individual floppy
disks. This program is also free to the public at www.RARsoft.com.
A third extremely popular shareware compressing agent is
called ARJ, and can be found at www.ARJsoft.com. This program has all the same
abilities as RAR, and PKZIP, but just in a different format, and file
extension.
With the various compression utilities out there, it’s
nice to have more than one around so that you can open other people’s files.
You can only unzip a file with a .zip extension using PKZIP. A file with the
.arj extension can only be opened with ARJ, and the .rar extension consequently
can only be opened with the RAR program. Most files on the internet come
compressed in one of these three above formats, and some sites even have 3 differently
compressed copies for you to choose from all in the place.
The world of compression is an important one, simply for
the fact that it allows us a little bit of control over the size of our
computers, and the time which we spend downloading one another’s files. So when
those files come up that just seem bigger than you can handle, pull out your
favorite compression program, and cut it down to size.
GET STARTED NOW!
Call ADVANCE GRAPHICS at 8950076650 to speak to one of
our Marketing Specialists.Or email us at mintusudan@gmail.com
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