DiskDoubler will start crunching away at the files and within a few seconds to a few minutes (for larger files), you'll have cut the file size down by an average of 50%. To start saving disk space, select one or more files or folders in the Finder, and choose Compress from the DD menu. Then, the application will run, expand the file, and look for the application that created the file. The application will also compress and expand files if you wish to do it manually, but most people will only see it when they double-click on a DiskDoubler file. The extension puts up the menu and handles much of the automatic compression and expansion work. Reboot, and you're on your way to freeing up much-needed disk space.Īfter rebooting, you'll notice a new menu in the Finder next to Special, "DD." DiskDoubler consists of two parts, a system extension (INIT) and an application. Simply double-click on Salient's installer application and it automatically installs the DiskDoubler files, including the application, the extension, and the help file. In any event, by the time SpaceMaker comes out, new versions of DiskDoubler and SuperDisk! will undoubtedly be at least in the works, so a Compression III issue looms in your reading future. Even better, SpaceMaker will expand StuffIt archive if you merely remove the ".sit" from the filename. In addition, SpaceMaker will create standard StuffIt Deluxe files or self-extracting archives if you merely add ".sit" or ".sea" to the filename. You will be able to define any keyword (SuperDisk! requires a ".s" extension) to specify files to compress, and SpaceMaker can look for files that haven't been modified in a specified amount of time and compress them. Aladdin, the company that publishes the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink compression program StuffIt Deluxe, has announced that it is working on a program called SpaceMaker that will operate in much the same way as SuperDisk!, but with some additional features. It's worth mentioning that just as there is another competitor in the traditional archiving world, PakWorks, we will soon have more competition for DiskDoubler and SuperDisk! as well. SuperDisk! reasonably claims "Ultra High-Speed Compression" and adds that it will "expand your hard disk capacity by 30 to 70%." Each program goes about this task in slightly different ways, thereby lending each of them certain strengths and weaknesses. DiskDoubler accurately boasts that it "compresses files an average of 50%," thereby doubling your disk space. Simply put, DiskDoubler and SuperDisk! both increase the available space on your disk by compressing the files stored on your disk. Whereas StuffIt and Compact Pro are more traditional archiving programs, DiskDoubler and SuperDisk! fall into the range of daily-use utilities. Last time I did benchmarks, I reviewed Compact Pro, StuffIt 1.5.1, StuffIt Deluxe and DiskDoubler. Well, it's long-past time for yet another TidBITS compression article (YATCA?). All rights reserved.Ĭopyright (c) 1991 Ken Hancock & Adam C. Copyright 1991 TidBITS Electronic Publishing.
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