zip

Car2Go expands car-sharing program, but not in time for SXSW

Timed almost perfectly to avoid the swarms of tourists that will descend upon the city for the weeklong SXSW, Daimler's car-sharing program Car2Go will expand its service area and add more cars to its fleet in downtown Austin.

Car2Go is a lot like ZipCar with the difference that its rental fleet consists entirely of Smart ForTwos that you can rent by the minute. Another differentiating perk is that you don't have to return vehicles to the same location where you picked them up--you can drop off a rental in any valid and publicly accessible parking space. But starting … Read more

Reading the contents of a ZIP file in OS X

OS X conveniently provides the option to compress files or folders directly in the Finder, creating archives of documents in a single ZIP file that can be moved to backup locations, e-mailed to people, or otherwise managed. This can be done by selecting some files and choosing Compress (or Archive in prior OS X versions) from the File menu or contextual menu.

Uncompressing the files is as simple as double-clicking them, which will expand the contents right next to the original archive. While this is useful, when handling these ZIP archives you might wish to see the files inside them … Read more

Seagate revives Zip drive concept with GoFlex storage system

LAS VEGAS--You might not remember it, but the Zip drive was arguably the most popular external storage solution during the second half of the '90s. With the initial storage capacity of 100MB (which later increased to up to 750MB), it was a perfect replacement for the floppy drive.

The Zip drive is similar to a floppy drive, with the slot just slightly larger to accommodate the thicker Zip disks.

With the rapid increase of internal hard drives' capacity, though, the Zip drive couldn't keep up, and its popularity started to wane at the turn of the century. By 2005 … Read more

Google-backed RelayRides launches in Bay Area

Flush with cash from an Google Ventures investment, RelayRides recently launched a peer-to-peer car-sharing service in the San Francisco Bay Area that can turn every idle car into a rental.

Renting out your car to total strangers may sound like a risky venture, but it's a way to earn money from an otherwise underused car while helping out carless neighbors. Car owners set their own hourly rate and keep 65 percent of the total rental fee.

RelayRide estimates that an economy car available 20 hours per week can earn owners $4,600 per year. But how much you earn … Read more

Zipper up

Developers have answered the need for better ZIP utilities than Windows provides. We took a spin with CAM unZip, which offers to simplify the process of zipping and unzipping files in Windows but also packs power-user options such as a command-line interface, password compatibility, and the ability to run files upon extraction.

During setup, the installer recommends making CAM unZip your default compression utility, which we selected. The program's efficient interface has File and Help menus and icons for opening archives and creating new ones. The File menu lists Options, but "Option" would be more accurate since … Read more

Apple's EasyPay goes Gap, lands at Old Navy

Apple's iPod touch-based point-of-sale system, dubbed EasyPay, had been rumored to be available for third-party retailers looking for a mobile solution to their sales experience, which may soon land in some major stores.

9to5Mac reports that Gap, Inc. has begun piloting the EasyPay (rebranded ZipPay) system at its Old Navy stores.

"We're told there is one per store and they are kept in a safe when not in use."

The ZipPay systems run on a modified iPod Touch that is encased with a barcode scanner and a credit card swiping feature. Customers need only accept the … Read more

Good things in small packages

ZIP files are a great way to compress larger files into a format that's easy to store and share. Although Windows comes with a utility for creating ZIP files, it's pretty basic and doesn't offer a lot of options. ZipGenius Suite is a full-featured program that lets users easily create, edit, and share ZIP files.

The program's interface is plain and intuitive, with large, graphical buttons across the top. The opening screen lets users go straight to the program's major features, which include creating a new archive, opening an existing archive, extracting files from an … Read more

Exclusive: Stuffit 2011 for Mac

These days, most file compression activities are baked into your operating system, but there are still plenty of reasons to get a specialized compression utility. With StuffIt 2011 for Mac--exclusive to CNET Downloads today--you can create customized "Destinations" that let you drag and drop files or folders for automated compression and sending. Want to compress to ZIP format and upload via FTP, for example? With a quick setup, you can create your custom destination beforehand with your preferred compression algorithm, and you'll never have to worry about flipping through menus for this destination again. To top … Read more

Zip on the fly

Zipping files is a great way to compress them and make them easier to transport, but the actual zipping process can sometimes be a pain. FireFly is a simple utility that brings drag-and-drop simplicity to the file zipping process.

There's not much to this clever little tool. It appears as a small rectangle, hovering on your screen, and its opacity can be adjusted so that it doesn't interfere with whatever else you're working on. When you come across a file you want to zip, simply drag it to the rectangle and drop it in. You can do … Read more

The 404 567: Where we get caught playing with our toys (podcast)

Today's episode of The 404 Podcast resurrects our love for action figures and other toys from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Jeff's a little older than Wilson and me, but we can still bond over our mutual love for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures and our mutual hatred for picking up all those foam Nerd darts.

There's also a lot to learn about each other based on our toys. For example, Wilson's mom used to yell at him for unscrewing and tinkering with all his figures, which explains why he eventually grew up building his own computers.

Unfortunately, we're too old to play with children's toys now so we've all graduated to big-boy toys, and it's with great sadness that we have to announce the death of the floppy disk. After three decades of production, Sony announced Friday that it would end all floppy-disk sales before the end of March 2011.

Many are unaware that Sony actually pioneered the first 3.5-inch floppy disk in 1981, although the 1.44MB disks were quickly rendered obsolete by other types of removable media like Zip disks, USB flash drives, and of course rewriteable CDs and DVDs. Stay tuned as we deliver a heartfelt "eugoogly" to the floppy disk--a close friend that saved kilobytes of data and served as the basis for way too many nerdy pickup lines.

It's no surprise that Internet privacy is a thing of the past, but a few Blippy users are still finding that out the hard way. If you've never heard of the site before, Blippy is a new company that lets you share your online purchases with everyone on a social network. The service gleans financial data, including what you bought and where you got it, and lets you compare your purchases with others at a granular level, all with the hopes of saving you a few bucks on future purchases.

Unfortunately, five Blippy users found their credit card information published in Google's search engine cache over the weekend. A rep from the company claims that a breach in two banks' security systems caused the problem and they've asked Google to reindex the entire site to fix it, but none of us really understand the appeal of Blippy- feel free to chime in if you're a user and let us know if you've stopped using the service after hearing about this breach in security.

EPISODE 567 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more