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[Windows version:]

http://www.freewaregenius...speeds-our-tests-say-yes/

How can one write an article about copy accelaration utilities and then forget to mention the exact Windows version used?

"Windows version: Windows Home 64 bit."

Very meaningful indeed...

[not]

One thing that I think hasn't been mentioned so far in this thread is that sometimes the e-books are put together in a thoughtless way. While e.g. the printed equivalent of a programming book might come with a CD-ROM that contains addional chapters (that just didn't fit in the book) one can be pretty sure that these chapters are not available in the e-book (have seen it myself in an actual programming e-book).

Personally, I find the comprehensive software reviews the most useful thing here on DonationCoder. Alas, most software reviews naturally become obsolete after just a few years, which happened to some reviews on DonationCoder as well. Certainly it would take serious effort to update them, so I don't see that happening any time soon.

jaden, thank you so much for this comment.  i almost felt like no one was reading these.  I am a little embarrassed to admit how much effort I put into these reviews.

Just to make sure you won't stop writing reviews (), let me chime in and say that just because of your review I'm going to give Linkman (light) a try. Thanks for pointing it out.  

I've heard Adobe AIR mentioned a lot lately.  What code does it use?  Java?

As far as I can tell, AIR supports different technologies, so the developer can use the one that he is most familar with:

• Flash Player (the developer can use Flash Builder, formerly known as Flex)
• HTML/CSS/JavaScript (rendered using the WebKit engine)
• PDF. However, I heard the PDF support in AIR is weak.

The most interesting RealBasic/Real Studio feature is IMHO that one can compile standalone executables without having access to the other platforms (especially the Mac since I don't have one).

Are there other compilers or IDE's with such a feature?

Maybe you already know this, but just in case: Adobe's web page Flash Player Version Check is a quick way to identify both the currently installed version and the newest available one.

Other ways of finding out the installed version of Flash Player are cumbersome IMHO.

I notice that nobody uses WinRK. What do you think? I heard the stability should have improved a lot compared to previous versions. Anyone tried the demo of the current version yet? On the other hand, I'm not sure WinRK is still actively developed - the newest version ist two years old now...

I currently use StuffIt on WinXP currently, but only because I found the StuffIt CD before I downloaded 7-Zip. I guess if I encounter a 7z archive I will replace StuffIt with 7-Zip - always liked the lean 7-Zip better than this bloated file manager, backup scheduler, e-mail, FTP... and *cough* compression package called StuffIt...

Addendum:
PKware seems to follow the WinZip path:
PKWARE's APPNOTE.TXT Version: 6.3.0 covers now LZMA and PPMd support

As a consequence, both will probably be implemented in 7-Zip since Igor Pavlov uses PKware's Zip specification. See also:

http://sourceforge.net/fo...587697&forum_id=45797

Greetings,
Def

No, the first post actually doesn't answer "why pander to silly Winzip users?". It says there are people out there who still use it - and of course there are - but doesn't answer why not just tell them to get a decent, standard-supporting (and free!) archiver. There are lots of great options - Tugzip, IZArc, ZipGenius, etc, etc. Or if they must pay, get WinRAR, which is far more capable and whose proprietary format actually doesn't suck.

All I'm saying is don't put up with their crap - tell them it's crap and get them to switch. It's your duty as a lover of good software.

Sorry, you are right, I didn't say it as clearly as I thought. Given that most WinZip 10 users are somewhat new to computers they are really happy as soon as they manage to get along with WinZip that they are not likely to switch. Also, once they have already paid for WinZip, there's no point in arguing "try XYZ, it's even free!"
In general, I feel my job is not to convert people to other tools. I just accept the world as it is. 
Anyway, I believe that we both don't like WinZip and we both prefer other tools, so we don't have to act as if we were arguing. 

Ah, but why pander to silly Winzip users? Tell them to get a free archiver that supports .7z and they'll probably have better compression *and* not have to pay for the crappy Winzip.

- Oshyan

The reasons for that are stated in my original post. 
Seriously though, it seems that PPMd ZIP support will eventually get added to 7-Zip because PKWare decided to include it into their ZIP specification (along with LZMA within ZIP although it seems no archiver supports it yet  ) See http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1580258&forum_id=45797 for details (Igor's comment near the end of that page).

Def

[that can be extracted by WinZip 10]

So what's special about this new PPMd format?

That it is the format with the best compression that can be extracted by WinZip 10 without any addional software. 
Erm... That's all I can say about it...

Def

Okay, okay, you convinced me. 
I hereby withdraw my wish. 

Greetings,
Def

Thanks for your answer, wr975.
An SFX archive might just be the solution. So far I have resisted the temptation to do so, not so much because of the overhead (size of SFX stub) but because people seem to fear viruses in EXE files.
But still it might be better to send an EXE file than to support WinZip's dirty attempt to mess with PKware's ZIP standard.

Thanks again,
Def

I'd like to see a free program that can create and extract PPMd ZIP archives (introduced with WinZip 10). Specification is here: http://www.winzip.com/ppmd_info.htm

Although this format is not yet wide-spread and might never be, some people do use WinZip 10, and it would be nice to send them archives that use WinZip 10's full compression abilities. A command line program is totally suffient.

I've not yet found a program that is free of charge that can create PPMd ZIP archives. The only program I found is ZipStar http://www.speedproject.de/enu/zipstar/index.html that can extract PPMd ZIP archives and which is free for personal use.

Thanks for any comments,
Def