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Yesterday I asked for some reader questions in order to better serve visitors and regular readers in things they would like me to cover. Carolyn asks a very good question regarding .zip files. If you Work at Home, most likely your computer is involved in some way. That being the case, you will run into zip files in quite a few applications you need in your Business.
Carolyn’s question was:
Sorry, I have no concrete questions right now. Unless you’d like to write a post explaining zip. files and why some of us are zipaphobic. Give me a snake, I’ll pet your spider, the mouse can eat what’s leftover from my plate. I don’t like zip.files.
Carolyn Manning
What’s not to like about .zip files, they are just a compression of a bunch of files for easy download/upload. No hidden snakes or spiders or mice. Just a nice, easy, fast way of transporting files.
As far as why people are zipaphobic. I have no idea why someone would be afraid of them. They are easy to use and with the right program are pretty much foolproof. All of the zip programs I have come across have easy to follow instructions written for the user, not programmers.
per Wikipedia
ZIP is a fairly simple archive format that compresses every file separately. Compressing files separately allows for individual files to be retrieved without reading through other data; in theory, it may allow better compression by using different algorithms for different files.
As long as you trust the source, you shouldn’t have any problems with a good program like WinZip (free trial, not freeware).
Rick Cockrum suggests in his comment… 7 zip is even better, and it’s free. You can get it at http://www.7-zip.org/ .
I hope this answered your question Carolyn. And you needn’t be zipaphobic any longer, we all use them any time we download a file we want or need.
If you have a question regarding Working at Home, running a Business from your Residence or being a Home Based Entrepreneur, please either leave the question in comments or use my contact form.
This is the First Installment of the Reader’s Questions Series
Article Series - Readers Questions
- No Need to Fear Zip Files
- So, You Want to Be a Pen for Hire
- Blogging as Journalism
5 Comments
Hey Joe,
I wonder what my therapist would say if he read this?
Carolyn
Hey Carolyn,
Your therapist may have to work overtime, you’re on again tomorrow.
Then I will work on Lara’s suggestions to give you a break.
I’m really hoping that others take the opportunity to ask questions too. I’m having fun with this and turned it into an upcoming series.
Joe
Hey Joe,
I had a feeling it would turn into a nice series for you.
Are you aware you have an unhappy SQL syntax going on? The far right is good down to ‘recent posts’ and then there are a bunch of html gripes down to ‘links I like’.
Carolyn
Hey Carolyn,
This could turn out to be one of my better series, I hope.
Yeah, I know about that, it’s a quirk with the series plug-in untils there is a second post. ??? Don’t know why, but it only shows on the individual uri for a little while.
Joe
Zipaphobic. That’s a cool word!
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