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WinRAR is a fantastic utility program for taking your files - packing them together to make them smaller and allowing you to send them via e-mail or post onto a server for whoever to download.
Here is an example of how you could use it:
You've written an important document in Microsoft Word which is a fairly large document and very confidential. You take this file and compress it with WinRAR (more or less shove it into a little container for transit!).
As this document is confidential you can add a password to the WinRAR file so that the receiver has to enter the exact password to open (For Your Eyes Only...Syndrome). You may want to send a password in a seperate e-mail for better security.
Let's WinRAR an important file for you to send with a password.
- Download and install WinRAR
- Locate your important file to send.
- Right-click on your file and select Add to Archive
NOTE: From wherever this file is your WinRAR archive will be created by default. For example, if you have a folder on
your desktop called Andy's files and your important file is in there, when you create your WinRAR then it will reside in Andy's files folder.
- Give your Archive a name
- Archive Format - leave as RAR
- Compression Method - set to best
- Split to Volumes - If you want to send a large file split up into segments then use this menu to select your preferred file size.
For example, if you want to send someone a 500Mb file split into 6 parts then select Zip100. This will split up your file into segments of up to 98Mb. I have another example which might help...Come back to that shortly.
- For password security - select the Advanced tab select Set password and enter your secret password twice.
When the WinRAR file is opened by the receiver a password box will popup requesting the exact password.
- Click ok when you're happy.
- There are other various functions in here which I don't deem as important but you may want to open the WinRAR help file
for a full explanation.
Continuing with another scenario which I faced recently. I develop multimedia software and wanted to send the master file which was 400Mb to
the media company who was handling checking and duplication. The file was too large for my website to host and certainly too big to send via
e-mail. Otherwise my hosting company would have charged for additional webspace.
Solution: Split the file into segments and find a company that can transfer files up to 100Mb for you for free.
Here is what I did:
- Selected my entire project, right-clicked on it and selected WinRAR. Set Compression to best and set Split to Volumes to Zip100 to
split the files into 98Mb fragments.
- Setup a membership with YouSendIt.com and sent the entire project to my media company in less than an hour!
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