ZIP and RAR are two most popular archive formats on the Windows side of the planet. They are used to compress data like word documents and excel tables to take much less space.

This, in turn, is useful for generating efficient backups and sending one-year Microsoft financial reports by email.

People who are not very familiar with computers can understand the idea behind data compression rather easily. What I found almost impossible to explain to such people is why a file compressed by one archiver can be further compressed by another archiver.

Here is an idea how to illustrate the process of double compression.

(more…)

I often use browser bookmarks to store my search results for a project, like a list of vacuum equipment manufacturers. It is very useful when I need to come back to it in a couple of month: with one click I have all the information I need.

The problem is, web pages are often updated, moved or deleted. I am always worried if I can trust my lists which were made a while ago.

It would be nice for my browser could help me out with this problem.

(more…)

The Transformation tool in CorelDraw allows to move and transform an object precisely by entering a value into the text box.

But very often I only need to change the sign of the transformation value, not the value itself. For example, after moving an object up by 1 mm, I now want to move it down.

Here is something that could help do this faster.

(more…)

AutoDesk AutoCAD is a well known engineering software for 2D and 3D design. It implements hundreds of functions and tools to create and manipulate various graphical objects. Still, some operations with simple objects can be a real pain.

Imagine you have a drawing with a 100 simple objects of the same type, like circles, ones you’d never normally put in a Block structure or group by themselves. Is there an easy way to quickly add another bigger circle around each one of the initial circles?

(more…)

Gradient fill is one of the standard tools in CorelDraw. It works seamlessly for both single and multiple objects:

• Select an object or a group of objects.
• Apply Gradient Fill.

But it’s not so easy when the gradient fill should be applied to a group of objects in respect to another object (which can be interpreted as a light source illuminating the group). Here is what can be done.

(more…)