Jan
15
Written by:
Project Complete
1/15/2010 10:11 AM
Last week I expounded on PDF files, the Portable Document Format that saves file size space on the hard drive and when emailing, so files can get through more easily. This is a great tool to use, but there are a few other things to keep in mind when emailing attached large documents and files. Since most Internet service providers only allow file sizes up to five or ten megabytes, you may run across a situation where it's best to zip it up.
A zip file uses a method of data compression to take the information in the file and encodes it to use fewer bits than an unencoded file. Compression is useful because it uses fewer resources on your hard disk or transmission bandwidth. Hard disk you know already — that's the amount of information your computer can hold. Bandwidth is the amount of allowable space your communication will be allowed, which is set by your Internet service provider (ISP), or web hosting company. Back in the days of modems or dial up, it took forever to send a large file, but now that Internet cable connections are the norm, it's lightning fast. The only time you might run into a problem is if you have an incredibly large file, say, all the photos you took at the recent class reunion that you want to send to a friend who wasn't able to go. Then you'll want to look into a method of compression.
If you're using a PC with Windows, you'll find WinZip is the easiest way to go to compress a file, but on a Macintosh, you'll probably use a program called StuffIt. So it's only a matter of right-clicking a file to cram it down to size. And if you've received a zipped file, both computer types make compressing and uncompressing extremely simple — zip-a-dee-do-dah easy!