compress

Onavo is an intriguing new app that works a little money-saving magic. It compresses your iPhone's data stream, in some cases significantly, resulting in less total data consumption overall. Upwards of 80 percent less, according to developer Onavo Mobile.

That means if you're in a roaming area, like overseas, you stand to pay less for data. And if you subscribe to AT&T's DataPro plan, you might just be able to downgrade to the cheaper DataPlus. Do I have your attention yet?

The first time you run the app, it installs a new profile on your iPhone, one that allows the service to act as a proxy server. Translation: all your data gets routed through Onavo's servers.

(Privacy junkies, take note: the company does collect certain kinds of traffic-related information, like session durations and IP addresses, but doesn't sell any "personally identifiable information" to third parties. I highly recommend reading the company's privacy policy if you have concerns.)

Onavo compresses inbound data to apps like Safari, Mail, Facebook, and Google Maps, and does so entirely in the background. In my tests, I noticed no performance hit while using these and other everyday apps.… Read more

WinRAR is a lightweight, flexible, and easy-to-use archiving utility that can unpack most archive formats, as well as compress to both RAR and ZIP. Free to try for 40 days ($29 for single license), WinRAR is definitely top dog in the compression category.

WinRAR's interface is about as simple as it gets. Start creating (or add to) an archive by dragging and dropping your files into the interface or by browsing through the Folder Tree side panel (when enabled). From there, the most common functions are laid out in the form of colorful, mostly intuitive icons, which can all … Read more

WinRAR is a lightweight, flexible, and easy-to-use archiving utility that can unpack most archive formats, as well as compress to both RAR and ZIP. Free to try for 40 days ($29 for single license), WinRAR is definitely top dog in the compression category.

WinRAR's interface is about as simple as it gets. Start creating (or add to) an archive by dragging and dropping your files into the interface or by browsing through the Folder Tree side panel (when enabled). From there, the most common functions are laid out in the form of colorful, mostly intuitive icons, which can all … Read more

The Xiph.Org Foundation, creator of the royalty-free Vorbis audio encoding technology made suddenly relevant by Google's WebM project, is nearing completion of a next-generation codec called CELT and has resumed development of one due after that called Ghost.

"Ghost research was postponed until recently to devote more resources to improving video," said Monty Montgomery, who worked on Vorbis and CELT, in a blog post last week. "Ghost development now resumes where it left off in 2007."

Vorbis, CELT (Constrained Energy Lapped Transform), and Ghost all are audio codecs, meaning that they're designed to … Read more

Uploading images is to Net newbies what parallel parking is to new drivers: it takes a lot of trial and error to get it right. And Megabyte-size snapshots hog Facebook bandwidth. Fileminimizer Pictures 3 from Balesio is a free tool that promises to help solve both issues. It resizes image files by up to 98 percent without zipping and without sacrificing quality. Its Facebook Uploader Module also makes it easy to post your pictures on Facebook.

Fileminimizer's interface is businesslike but attractive, with subtle but effective use of color and highlighting to differentiate the various icons and controls. Most … Read more

Chances are, there's something on your computer that you don't want other people to see, whether it's financial information, client files, trade secrets, or evidence of your erotic photography hobby. AxCrypt makes it easy to encrypt all types of files, ensuring that your sensitive data is safe from prying eyes.

The program integrates easily into Windows, appearing as an item in any file's context menu. Users simply right-click on the item they want to encrypt, select AxCrypt from the menu, and choose Encrypt. The program lets users select a password for the file and optionally create … Read more

Contrary to popular belief, the creation of PDF files doesn't require expensive, complex software. There are plenty of utilities out there now that make PDF creation as simple as printing. Solid PDF Creator is one such program. This basic piece of software lets users create PDFs with little effort or expertise.

Solid PDF Creator is attractive and easy to navigate. Once the program is installed it appears as a printer in the Print menu of every program that has printing capabilities. Users simply select Solid PDF Creator instead of their default printer, and the program opens a dialog allowing … Read more

These days, most file compression activities are baked into your operating system, but there are still plenty of reasons to get a specialized compression utility. With StuffIt 2011 for Mac--exclusive to CNET Downloads today--you can create customized "Destinations" that let you drag and drop files or folders for automated compression and sending. Want to compress to ZIP format and upload via FTP, for example? With a quick setup, you can create your custom destination beforehand with your preferred compression algorithm, and you'll never have to worry about flipping through menus for this destination again. To top … Read more

A couple of days ago we discussed some problems that could arise with sizing files with HFS compression. This problem basically arises from there being a lack of consistency in the various utilities that are available in OS X, where some show compression status and size, and others show the uncompressed size.

If you regularly do scripting or other work with files on disk that require you to know details about the compression, there are some utilities available that can help you get the status of file compression, and apply or remove compression from files on disk.

Hfsdebug

Hfsdebug is … Read more