{"id":295,"date":"2007-07-02T22:12:51","date_gmt":"2007-07-03T03:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/2007\/07\/02\/efficiency-tip-69-zip\/"},"modified":"2015-05-14T09:12:53","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T14:12:53","slug":"efficiency-tip-69-zip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/2007\/07\/02\/efficiency-tip-69-zip\/","title":{"rendered":"Efficiency Tip #69 – Zip"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a previous post<\/a>, I mentioned that file attachments are something you should avoid.\u00a0 There are times when they are unavoidable.\u00a0 If you must attach a file to an email, Zip it first.<\/p>\n

Zip is the generic term for “compress” with a compression program\u00a0based on\u00a0PKZip<\/a>\u00a0from a company called PKWare.\u00a0 Not\u00a0many people use the original PKZip any more.\u00a0 There is WinZip and an assortment of free and shareware titles<\/a> that most people now use.\u00a0 An “unzip” utility is built into Windows, but you will need to install some software<\/a> in order to create your own zipped files.\u00a0 If you don’t want to spend any money, I recommend 7-zip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is how I explain compression to my students.<\/p>\n

Did you ever wonder why all orange juice is labelled 100% pure orange juice – from concentrate<\/strong>?\u00a0 One gallon of OJ is approximately one half orange “stuff” and one half water.\u00a0 In Florida, the water is removed.\u00a0 One truck is used to drive the concentrate to Ohio.\u00a0 In Ohio, the water is added and two truck loads of OJ (from concentrate) are profitted.\u00a0 The savings is in the shipping.\u00a0 It only took one truck to get two truck-loads-worth of OJ to Ohio.\u00a0 With the price of fuel these days, that’s a lot of savings.<\/p>\n

File compression “removes”\u00a0redundencies in\u00a0files that can be\u00a0replicated later.\u00a0 The process makes the file smaller for transport or long-term storage.\u00a0 The compression process is complicated to understand (here is a good explanation<\/a>), but the results are easy to comprehend and benefit from.\u00a0 Compressing a file makes the file smaller.\u00a0 Smaller files can be sent across the Internet faster.\u00a0 This means it will take less time to send and to receive a compressed file.<\/p>\n

Be aware that different kinds of files will compress with different efficiencies.\u00a0 Some files (like Word documents) will compress down to 10% of the original size.\u00a0 A picture in JPEG format may only compress to 95% of the original size.\u00a0 Depending on the type of file you compress, your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n

There is one other important benefit to compression.\u00a0 All the zip utilities let you place multiple files into one zip “package”.\u00a0 So instead of attaching twenty different pictures to an email, all twenty pictures can be placed inside one zip file.\u00a0 The one zip file can be sent.\u00a0 The recipient can unzip the file and get all twenty pictures.<\/p>\n

That said, it is important to note that zipped files are only for transport and archiving.\u00a0 To use the contents of a zip file, you must first unzip it.<\/p>\n

TSPY=2.12<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a previous post, I mentioned that file attachments are something you should avoid.\u00a0 There are times when they are unavoidable.\u00a0 If you must attach a file to an email, Zip it first. Zip is the generic term for “compress” … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[336,338],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edtech","category-efficiency","tag-edtech","tag-efficiency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1446,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/1446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}