Never attempt to change a file s type just (Kids web site)
Never attempt to change a file s type just by changing its file name exten- sion. It won t work, and you ll make the file unreadable. To make the filereadable again, you ll need to rename it, giving it back its original extension. Realize that we re talking strictly about the sizes of the files, in bytes, here, notthe size of the picture as it appears on the screen. If you look at the bitmapand JPEG images side by side on the screen, they re identical. Yet in terms ofdisk storage, the bitmap image is 55 times larger than the JPEG. This brings me to another point. Many file types are already compressed. Andadding them to a zip file does little to shrink them further. Some examples offile types that are already compressed include MP3 and WMA music files, MPEG and WMV movies, and, of course, the aforementioned JPEG images. None of these files needs to be decompressed for use. They re already smallbecause the compression is built in. Compressing files that are already in a compressed format won t buy youmuch. For example, the bitmap format used in my previous example isn t compressed at all. Recall that compressing a bitmap image reduced it from55,000KB to 18,000KB a difference of 37,000KB. When I compress the JPEGversion of that same picture, the JPEG shrinks from 1,200KB to 1,100KB amere 100KB difference. So I guess the moral of the story is that it s better toknow the file types and actual sizes of your files than it is to ignore actualsizesand just assume that zipping a file is the only way to make it smaller. Of course, when it comes to e-mailing multiple files to people, zip files stilloffer the benefit of combining multiple files into one file (kind of like orderingabunch of products and having them all shipped to you in one box rather thanin many little boxes). And that s convenient whether the files shrink a lot, or alittle, in the process. SummaryAlrighty then; let s do a quick recap of the main points in this chapter: .Zip files, also called compressed folders, are a means of combiningand compressing one or more files into a single, smaller file. .You can compress files using Windows XP or a third-party zip pro- gram, but not both. .To compress files, select their icons in Windows Explorer, right-click, and choose Send To.Compressed (zipped) folder. .When you receive a zip file as an e-mail attachment, or download onefrom the Internet, you ll probably find it easiest to save it to yourhard disk first. .To extract the files from a zip file, right-click the zip file s icon andchoose Extract All.
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