Ok, yes I am completly new to some of this. Maybe this isn't even the right place to ask, but can anyone tell me of a good file compression program. More to the point what files or drives can/do i compress to free up space in my system. I'm running Windows ME if that might help at all. I just received a C drive space low warning this morning. Again not sure if this is the right forum for the answers, but any help would be great.
Win Zip is good, Win Rar also compress pretty good. I don`t know if its around any more but the best compression was using a program I can`t remember but would convert files to the .mp3 format. They weren`t mp3`s but would allow for file sharing on the only Napster. I use Win Zip and get anthing form 80 to 2% compression depending on the file.
I think WinZIP has outlived its usefullness but it doesnt really matter which you use. They are all roughly the same.
As far as the type of files to compress, you will get varied results. Most media is already compressed - jpg, gif, avi, mpg, mp3, wav, etc so you gain very little by compressing them with zip or rar. In the case of avi files you can convert them to divx or xvid to save space but that is a time consuming process. As an alternate, have you considered buying another hard drive? With prices less than $1 a gigabyte, $100 can buy a whole lot of free space. I usually only compress things when I am going to either archive them to cd or want to group them together in a single file.
And if you are only concerned with using the drive for archive/storage, you can even get the lower heat/noise 5400rpm ones for 60cents/GB. It doesnt have a world of performance but hey, its for archival
Well DVD's are about 25 cents per Gb, so you really can't beat that. Also with 8x DVD-Roms its very fast. But burn on DVD-R to increase the life of the data. Alternative storage is good.
DVDs might be cheaper yes but they are also dainty as hell ... you look at a dvd the wrong way and it will never play ever again ugh (thats the biggest reason i dont like dvds/standlones much .... one finger print and the whole caboodle goes out of whack ... could just be me but hell thats a lot of bad luck with dvds!
That is true, the first ones I was using at 50 cents a GB were and still are beter than the newer ones I have been using. But they might get better as the companies tweak the mast production lines. Look at CD's, first bunch were crap. Now you just about buy any type of CD and there are of similar quality.
