Compress Mp3 Files

Online dating fertile ground for scammers

Q: I would like to sign up for an online dating service, but friends have told me they're just hangouts for scammers. One friend said a guy e-mailed and telephoned her constantly, confessed his love for her, then asked her to send him a cell phone. His profile listed the Bay Area as his residence, but he said he went away for business to places like New York, New Jersey, Iraq and South Africa. It all sounded pretty shady. How can I be sure that someone I meet online is on the level?

A: It's practically impossible. You could pay a service such as BeenVerified.com to conduct a background check on prospective dates (which could get expensive), and you can check out people's pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. But there's no escaping the fact that online dating is fertile ground for scammers. As your friend seems to have discovered, people you meet online aren't always who they claim to be. A single, fun-loving guy could actually be married with children, while a shy girl from Eastern Europe could actually be a man trying to lure men into online relationships and then hit them up for cash, ostensibly for things like air travel so the couple can meet in person, or perhaps medicine for a sick relative.

Play it smart. Be on the lookout for signs of a scam, and run at the first mention of money. Also, don't give personal information such as your address and landline telephone number to a prospective date until you've established a level of trust. That could take a while, but what's the hurry? It doesn't have to be love at first byte.

Q: I have a lot of MP3 files, and I sometimes copy them to a portable hard drive, my iPod or a flash drive. Does copying MP3s from one location to another decrease the quality of the files in any way?

A: No. Copying retains the data in any file, including MP3s. But MP3s do have an issue with quality. That's because they are compressed - which means a typical MP3 can occupy one-tenth the space of the same song on its original CD. To compress a song into an MP3, some of the information in it must be discarded - which hurts the quality. The same thing happens when a photo is compressed from a raw image into a JPEG. Fortunately, MP3 (and JPEG) compression programs do a good job of tossing out the least important information, leaving a song or image that's pretty close to the quality of the original. If you're listening to an MP3 through average speakers or ear buds, you probably won't notice the difference.

What Is Compression | Training in Computers

Downloading files from the Internet has always been one of the most popular activities on the Internet – third to sending email and browsing the web. We download files from software libraries, ftp directories, YouTube and Google Video, MP3 sites, and we download files sent to us as email attachments.

Being so popular an activity, it’s imperative that you compress the files destined for another computer. File compression combines a number of different files into one file, and it can also significantly reduce a very large file to a smaller one. As a result, the transmission of a compressed file across the Internet is faster and smoother. This article looks at compressed files a little closer and it describes how to compress and decompress them using two of the most popular archiving programs.

Identifying Compressed Files

Most files are compressed in .zip format (if you’re using Windows) or .sit format (if you’re using a Mac). The two most popular software programs used to compress and decompress files are Winzip and StuffIt respectively. There are other programs that do the same thing and there are even programs that can compress and decompress files for both the Windows and the Mac system. However since Winzip and StuffIt are the most popular, we will assume you will use either one to compress and decompress your own files.

If you download a compressed file from a website or file library that ends in an .exe extension, take note that although the file is compressed, it’s typically a file that will install a program onto a computer. .Zip or .Sit files don’t install software – they merely archive a collection of them into one, or they significantly reduce the size of a larger one.

Decompressing Files

Assuming that you have Winzip or StuffIt installed on your computer, you can access the files archived inside a .zip or .sit file by simply double-clicking the archive (a file ending in a .zip or .sit extension). Double-clicking one of these kinds of files will open up a window that displays the contents of the archive. In most cases, you can double click a file inside this window to use it, or you can select it and drag the file to a folder to view later.

Depending on how you elected to install Winzip or StuffIt, you may be able to right-click a .zip or .sit file and have the program extract its contents into a new folder for you.

Compressing Files

When you want to upload a file or email a collection of files to a friend, it’s best to archive it as a .zip or .sit file first. This will decrease the time it takes for your computer to send it elsewhere, and it will also decrease the time it takes for someone else to download it.

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