Kibbles & Bytes Blog

A long-time Small Dog customer asked me about an item that fleetingly appeared in his dock. It was a generic-looking green icon with a zipper on it called Archive Utility, and when he used Spotlight to search for it, it was nowhere to be found.

Many of the items you download and receive in your email are compressed files. File compression is nothing new, and is exactly what you think it is: when you compress a file, you make it smaller. This reduces bandwidth loads and expenses on the server side, and can help you save disk space on your computer. However, compressed files cannot be directly accessed; they must first be decompressed.

Back in the days of twenty megabyte hard drives (my LC II had a 20 megabyte drive in the early nineties), file compression seemed more relevant for conservation of hard disk space. These days, it’s more often used to shrink email attachments and other downloads. Mac OS X always included a built-in compressor and decompressor. By right-clicking on any file or folder in the Finder and selecting “Compress” from the contextual (pop-down) menu, your Mac will create an archive in zip format.

When you open a compressed file, Mac OS X launches an application called Archive Utility. Its sole purpose is to compress and decompress files. It’s located in /System/Library/CoreServices, and Spotlight doesn’t search there. If you poke around the /System/Library and /Library areas of your hard drive, there’s plenty to learn if you Google intelligently and use extreme caution when moving or deleting anything. Actually–don’t move or delete anything. Just explore and learn!

Happy Tuesday,

At long last, the beginning of the end of the gulf oil spill is at hand. It is an extremely unsettling and sad fiasco to watch unfold, and the long-term effects are yet to be seen. With some fisheries reopening, many consumers remain skeptical that the seafood is safe to eat–myself included. It’s so tragic that the region’s food culture, so intimately tied to the strength of communities, families, traditions, and the economy, is in such a fragile state. So many humans feel detached from our ecosystem, and this wake-up call puts into focus how everything is interconnected.

Customers sometimes email me and our support team asking why liquid damage to a single component in their computers can cause problems in other components. Because every component in a computer is directly connected, exposure of one component to liquid can wreak havoc with other components. Just like the oil and dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico damage plankton and other creatures in the food chain, a drop of water on your inverter board could fry your display. No unquestionably beneficial dispersants or consequence-free beneficial bacteria exist to repair the corrosion.

Just because we cannot instantly defeat society’s dependence on petroleum does not mean you cannot prevent liquid damage to your computer. Just put your drink on the floor. Party in the dorm room? Put the computer away. Cold air conditioned office with humid weather outside? Put the computer in a case and let them both slowly come to temperature when you leave work. Consider a keyboard cover with the knowledge that it’s not a perfect solution.

In no way do I intend to compare the devastation of any oil spill to that of a fried computer. But, let’s be careful, and take well-calculated risks in all we do. The oil spill might not be directly crippling for you, but the financial and data loss implications of a fried computer certainly could be–wherever you happen to be.

As always, keep in touch.

Matt
“matt@smalldog.com”:mailto:matt@smalldog.com