by Todd Rosen
For those of us who believe only a geek would read an article on a needed utility, we will start with: ZipMagic 98 which is a compression utility well worth the suggested retail of $39.99 and is an asset to any computer. It eliminates the war between Winzip & PKZip. Now, for those of us who are geeks (who know what a phaser is), and want to know why our computers should have this program, let’s continue.
ZipMagic 98 is a multi-award winning compression program. It is designed to run under the Windows 3.x, 95, 98 & NT platforms and includes web and e-mail features.
It can open, modify, launch and save compressed files and applications as if they were never zipped.
ZipMagic 98 will take any file or files that have been selected and compress them to half or even less of its original size.
When a file or files are much smaller, a user can fit more data on the floppy or the hard drive.
Zipped files are also much quicker to send and receive over the Internet. In addition, ZipMagic 98 lets you view previous zipped files, any zipped files effortlessly.
You don’t have to be a geek (calls their mobile phone a communicator) to use it.
To zip a file, just right mouse click on it and choose ZipMagic. It is easy. To zip a large file on a hard drive and copy it to a floppy, just choose ZipMagic Send To.
It is very easy. If files, even zipped ones, are too large to fit on a floppy, ZipMagic 98 will request the user to put in a second floppy and continue to zip the files over multiple disks. It is VERY easy.
If a user wants to view what is in a previously zipped file, just double click on the zipped file and it opens like a folder in Windows. It is VERY, VERY easy.
To unzip and copy a single file from a zipped file folder, just drag and drop it (even a *.cab file). There is no unzipping.
It is VERY, VERY easy. By now, all readers (unless you’re a geek) should realize that ZipMagic 98 is a powerful tool with its strongest feature being its ease of use.
ZipMagic 98 opens more compression formats than any other Zip utility program and of course supports Winzip, PKZip and Zip-it. It also has a built in viewer that previews over 50 file formats. ZipMagic 98 has a built in Wizard if needed.
The program can zip files in standard *.zip format or in self-extracting *.exe format. There is a data integrity/repair program built in to fix any problems. ZipMagic 98 has Internet/Mail plug-ins and updates itself over the Internet.
It supports spanning and has full Drag and Drop support features. ZipMagic 98 uses 8 megabytes of hard drive space and 8 megabytes of RAM (16 for NT) when installed.
Todd Rosen is a HAL PC Internet Trainer and Southwestern Bell LAN Manager.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.