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Decompress with The Unarchiver
When I was asked to review The Unarchiver 2.7, a free decompression utility from Dag Ågren/WAHa, I thought "Who needs this program, when Mac OS X opens most common archive formats?" I quickly found out that thousands of people rely on The Unarchiver to do tasks that lie beyond the scope of built-in Archive Utility.app found in OS X. First I spoke to a loyal user, Barry Porter, an Apple Consultants Network member from Delray Beach, Fla. He said, "I use it everyday. It's great. I haven't found an archive it can't open. I use it because the built-in program is very limited in what it can create and open. You never need to open the program, it just works in the background unarchiving stuff." That's a glowing recommendation, so I put The Unarchiver to my own test. Back in the old days, it was common practice to archive files by compressing them so that they fit on a floppy disk or CD. If you happen to have saved those files onto a hard drive socked away for safekeeping, today you are hard-pressed to open those files. The Unarchiver can decompress many file types, so rejoice, because you can actually open DiskDoubler, Compact Pro and PackIt files now. I dug up some seriously old files to test The Unarchiver. I found some .sit files from 1994 and The Unarchiver opened them. Oh joy! Anyone need an Macintosh FTP list from 1995? (Curiously though, my search for files created before 1999 found over 1000 files created in 1969. I'm pretty sure that's not right! Must be a backup from a crashed drive... but I digress...) If you use more current formats and various download sites, you may encounter RAR or Tar files. No problem for The Unarchiver there either. If you find bugs or have a problem, Dag Ågren maintains an old-school support board on which you can ask questions. Also included is support for over 29 languages and DOS and Windows formats. To install, you only need to download it from the App Store. The program runs in the background. When you double-click on the application, all you see is the Preferences window. The only time you have to interact with the program is to give it permission to write to a folder, if you want to extract an archive into the same folder in which it lives. If you're curious and want to know exactly how many different archive formats exist, first look at The Unarchiver Supported formats page. Second, take a gander at Wikipedia's "List of archive formats." This handy page explains all of the file extensions used on various platforms for archived and compressed formats. In short, if you need to open archives of any flavor, you can't go wrong installing The Unarchiver. If you like it, you can donate to help Dag Ågren's development efforts for other programs too. Requirements: OS X 10.6.0 or later
Daily Mac App: iZip Archiver
Simple handling of compressed archives is a breeze on a Mac, simply secondary-click and hit "Compress". Likewise opening a zip file is as easy as a double-click. But what happens when you want to get a bit more advanced with your compression archives? That's where something like iZip Archiver steps in. iZip Archiver is available from both the Mac App Store and directly from the developer's site. The version available in the Mac App Store is a fairly limited application, but the free version available from izip.com allows you to do a couple of things that your Mac can't do natively, even with the likes of The Unarchiver, TinyExpander or Stuffit Expander installed. Essentially iZip Archiver will allow you to create archives in .zip format, secure them with a passcode and share them via files.com. That bit of the app doesn't really add anything to the default Mac-archiving experience. But what it will do is allow you to open and edit archives without extracting them first. Opening an archive mounts it like an external drive or .dmg, and allows you to look through the contents, open, edit, rename or extract single files, as well as add to or delete items from the archive. In this way you can add files you'd forgotten to zip up, or remove files you no longer want in your archive without having to unzip and re-zip them. For small archives it only saves a little time, but for really massive archives, skipping the extraction step will save you heaps of time. iZip Archiver supports ZIP, ZIPX, RAR, TAR, TAR.GZ and 7ZIP files, so most common archives are covered. There are other alternatives like BetterZip 2 and Stuffit Deluxe to name just two, but most of them aren't free. So if you're looking for a free tool for the occasional archive modification, iZip Archiver will do the job for you for nothing. The restricted iZip Archiver is available from the Mac App Store, while the more fully featured version is available directly from the developer's site.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: BetterZip 2
Mac OS X has had a zip utility built into it for some time. For extracting stuff other than Zip files, the Unarchiver's your friend. But what about actually compressing and managing archives? That's where BetterZip 2 steps in. BetterZip 2 allows you to open archives without first extracting them, allowing you to see precisely what's inside them before processing them. Often you've got loads of files compressed together, but you only want one -- BetterZip allows you to extract single files from archives without having to extract the whole lot, which can save you time and disk space if it's a really large archive. You can also update archives, adding files into an already compressed archive without having to extract the whole lot first and then re-compressing them together. BetterZip is able to open and extract most common formats, from ZIP to TAR, RAR to JAR, it's got you covered (for a full list see the MAS listing). BetterZip can also compress files into six archive types natively (ZIP, TAR, GZip or BZip2 compressed TAR, XAR and 7-Zip), as well as RAR archives courtesy of an external RAR command-line utility. You can also secure your ZIP, 7-Zip and RAR files with passwords, with WinZip compatible AES-256 encrypted archives at your fingertips. The US$19.99 BetterZip brings a full archive manager to your Mac. It's fast, easy to use and handles all but the most obscure archives. I would like to see the ability to create a few more archive types, but native ZIP and 7-Zip support will see you though most of your archiving needs. BetterZip 2 is available from the Mac App Store for $19.99 with a trial available from the developer's site.
New HDD writing methods could boost platter densities by 5x or more
Just when we think that platter-based storage is on its way out it keeps on coming back with a vengeance. A few years ago it was perpendicular recording boosting storage densities by a few orders of magnitude, now it's a pair of new techniques that could push things much further. Your average disk today can manage a couple-hundred GB per square inch while still delivering reliable writes, but if all goes to plan the write methods called bit-patterned recording (BPR) and thermally-assisted recording (TAR) could raise that to 1TB per inch initially and upwards of 10TB per inch down the road. BPR relies on segregating the disk sectors with lithographed "islands" while TAR relies on heating and cooling techniques that preserve the data in nearby sectors. When these Wonder Twins combine, disk sectors can be as small as 15nm in diameter and write speeds can hit 250Mb/sec. Yes, that's megabits, so while you'll be able to store a lot more data than on conventional platters, you won't be able to do so any more quickly than now.
Gish goes universal
Gish isn't a Mac-only experience, but as a platform game, it's a pretty good one. I played it way back when it was released on Windows, but Inside Mac Games reports that Chronic Logic has released a universal binary of Gish, so now you can play it on Intel or PowerPC Macs alike.Like I said, I found the game pretty fun. You play a ball of tar (no kidding) that rolls through underground locations in search of his lady friend (isn't that always how it goes), and the fluidity of your main character brings a lot of weird physics manipulation into play-- you can squeeze through small places, and even stick to surfaces like walls and ceilings. It's definitely a fun twist on platforming (and Gish can even invade old platformers with "warp zones," little psuedo stages that let you visit other games with Gish's abilities), and if you're in the mood for a great indie game, make sure to check out the demo. The full game is $20 over at the Chronic Logic website.
