ZIP posts

iWork secret life as ZIP file revealed, includes PDF preview

by Aron Trimble (RSS feed) on Nov 2nd, 2009

Former TUAW colleague David Chartier over at Finer Things in Mac has noted something interesting about the innocuous iWork '09 file format. What he found may surprise you.

An iWork '09 file created from Pages, Numbers, or Keynote actually lives a secret life as a ZIP archive. This trick isn't a new one; the most common example of archive trickery by Apple is probably the iPod/iPhone software bundle which uses ZIP as a container format. Previous iWork versions actually created folder-like bundle files by default, which made them tricky to upload to cloud storage or email to collaborators.

In the case of the new iWork files, changing the file extension to .zip and expanding the archive reveals the as-expected XML document and plist files (for the document and its formatting) as well as a little PDF surprise -- a preview version of the file. What this means for you is that you can send an iWork file to a friend or co-worker and regardless of their operating system choice or installed software base, they can "view" your document by unzipping it and opening the PDF.

On Windows, you would simply change the extension to .zip and open with your favorite un-archiving utility. Given the kludgy-ness of this process, it doesn't surprise me that Apple isn't promoting it. However, it would be interesting to see the folks in Cupertino release an iWork viewer for the Windows users in our lives (other than the extant iwork.com sharing service).

[Via Download Squad]

Tags: iwork, keynote, Numbers, pages, pdf, zip

Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW

Ask TUAW: Joystick as mouse, remote access, PC friendly zip files, and more

by Mat Lu (RSS feed) on Oct 14th, 2009

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about using a joystick as a mouse, remotely accessing a Mac from a PC, creating zip files without the Mac-specific metadata, replicating certain Windows features, and more.

As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine and which version of Mac OS X you're running (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.

Continue reading “Ask TUAW: Joystick as mouse, remote access, PC friendly zip files, and more”

Tags: ask tuaw, AskTuaw, busycal, controllermate, ergonomic, gotomypc, ical, idownload, logmein, mouse, sizeup, twoup, yemuzip, zip

Filed under: Odds and ends, iTunes, Graphic Design

Inside the new iTunes LP format

by Tim Wasson (RSS feed) on Sep 15th, 2009

With the release of iTunes 9 came iTunes LP. Our own Dave Caolo gave iTunes LP a glowing review, but if you're wondering just how Apple worked their magic with the new format, web developer Jay Robinson has picked it apart thoroughly. As it turns out, simply replacing the ".itlp" extension with ".zip" reveals the contents of the package, which are actually HTML, CSS, and a little JavaScript. The Flash-like interfaces really use no Flash, but instead rely on the proposed CSS3 animation properties. If you're a web developer like yours truly (or a few other TUAW bloggers), you'll definitely want to check out Jay's analysis of the format.

We've also been informed by a loyal tipster that if you take that unzipped folder of content and put it in your Sites directory (with Web sharing turned on, naturally), you might try browsing to it from your iPhone or iPod touch and seeing what shows up in Mobile Safari. Fascinating.

Tags: css, html, itlp, itunes 9, itunes lp, Itunes9, ItunesLp, javascript, webkit, zip

Filed under: Software, Leopard, Deals

BetterZip is a better zip

by Mat Lu (RSS feed) on Dec 24th, 2007

With zip support built into OS X a third-party compression utility has to bring something special to the table, and BetterZip does. Basically it allows you to open and inspect archives without expanding the whole thing first. This can be useful if you only want a few of the files that are compressed within an archive. It also does compression naturally, including encryption, splitting large archives, and stripping out Mac specific hidden files to make archives more cross-platform..

BetterZip supports a bunch of formats which should cover just about anything you'll run into on the net: ZIP, SIT, TAR, GZip, BZip2, RAR, 7-Zip, CPIO, ARJ, LZH/LHA, JAR, WAR, CAB, ISO, CHM, RPM, DEB, NSIS, BIN, HQX, DD. Finally, the developer has also put together a great Quick Look plugin that supports most of the same formats.

BetterZip is normally $19.95 and a demo is available but as it happens it's on sale at MacUpdate Promo until Monday evening for half-off ($9.95)

Tags: BetterZip, RAR, SIT, ZIP

Filed under: OS, Freeware, Leopard

Quick Look Folder and Zip plugins

by Mat Lu (RSS feed) on Nov 27th, 2007

Quick Look is a beautiful thing, and in my view practically itself worth the cost of admission to Leopard. Unfortunately, the more you get used to it, the more annoying it is when you get to a file format that Quick Look doesn't support. Fortunately, Apple was smart enough to design Quick Look with an open architecture that allows developers to write their own plugins and support more file formats, which Japanese developer Taiyo used to write two excellent plugins.

The first addresses a serious annoyance with the default Quick Look implementation on folders. If you invoke Quick Look with a folder selected in the Finder you'll get...a picture of the folder icon. Frankly, that's pretty stupid. Taiyo's Folder Quick Look Plugin fixes this by displaying the folder's contents, which is how it should have been done in the first place. Likewise, Taiyo's Zip Quick Look Plugin displays the contents of zip files.

I'm sure we'll be seeing more and more of these expansions of Quick Look in the days ahead, which will make this quintessential Leopard feature that much more useful. Both the Folder Quick Look Plugin and the Zip Quick Look Plugin are free downloads. Place them in your /Library/QuickLook/ or ~/Library/QuickLook/ folders and they should work immediately.

[via Digg]

Tags: folder, Quick Look, Quick-Look, QuickLook, zip

Filed under: Hacks, How-tos

Removing .DS_Store files from archives

by Erica Sadun (RSS feed) on Oct 29th, 2007

The marvelous Shaun T. Erickson tipped me off on a sweet way to remove .DS_Store files from your folders before you archive them. Those are the "invisible" files added by Finder on your Mac. He writes that it doesn't matter whether you zip or tar: if they are in the directory tree, they get picked up by the archive. He suggests running the following command from terminal, substituting the appropriate directory for "your_dir":

find your_dir -type f -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 rm

After, just tar or zip up your tree.

Tags: archives, zip

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Productivity, Internet Tools

Pyro 1.6: Campfire client gains search, drag and drop file transfer enhancements and more

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jun 12th, 2007

It's been over a year since we first mentioned Pyro, the powerful Mac OS X client for 37signals' Campfire web-based chat service for groups and businesses. While I personally didn't pick up a copy back then since I wasn't a Campfire user, I'm not entirely familiar with every change that has come since April '06. Still, even the most recent list of changes warrants Pyro another mention, especially since I'm looking at using Campfire for a few uses and projects.

In addition to already offering a dashboard and central location for all your Campfire chats and displaying message status alerts in the Dock icon, check out what's new in Pyro 1.6:

Any file type can be dragged onto Pyro to share in a Campfire chat
Pyro will automatically zip a folder or .APP
Dragging an image from a web browser will insert a URL for that image instead of uploading it
Campfire's new sidebar search field now works in Pyro
Support for the new WebKit installed by Safari 3 beta (mentioned on the Pyro development blog)
and of course, bug fixes

As Campfire's example uses page details, there are a lot of great scenarios for such a slick web app, and Pyro looks like the perfect tool to bring together the coolness of Campfire with the power of Mac OS X. Surprisingly, Pyro is still offered free, and even though Campfire primarily focuses on business users by offering a few paid accounts, it too has a free account with which you can register and tinker around to see if Campfire is right for your use.

Tags: 37 signals, 37Signals, archive, business, campfire, chat, collaborate, design, file transfer, FileTransfer, image, images, pyro, search, url, zip

Decompression done right with Unarchiver 1.6

by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on Mar 20th, 2007

Even though OS X includes a handy contextual menu for zipping and unzipping files, the decompression chores (handled by the BOMArchiveHelper.app tool, originally built for expanding components during software installs) aren't always managed as cleanly as one might like. The default behavior of the expander is to leave the original files intact after processing, leading to a phenomenon termed "zip litter" by a colleague. Blech.

If you're seeking a zipless desktop, check out The Unarchiver by Dag Ågren, just updated to version 1.6. Built from the bones of an ancient Amiga decompression library, this Swiss Army knife can handle almost any format you can think of and probably a few you can't -- I'm personally very excited to crack open some DiskDoubler files that have been languishing on my old Bernoulli media. With the exception of the proprietary SITX archives, where you'll still need an instance of Stuffit Expander, this free tool can handle everything else.

Thanks, Jeff!

Tags: bom, stuffit, utilities, zip

Filed under: OS, Software, Internet Tools, Security

More minor security flaws in Mac OS X

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Apr 22nd, 2006

Security-Protocols has discovered a few more minor security issues in Mac OS X that mainly pertain to how the OS and a few of its apps handle images and opening zip archives. From a quick glance through the listed errors, they pretty much amount to crashing an app, though a couple of the Safari issues cause "the application to crash, and or may allow for an attacker to execute arbitrary code."

Apple has been notified of the issues and will apparently be fixing them in the next security update. As Tim Gaden at Hawk Wings (where I found this) says: the classic advice of being careful about what attachments and links you open and click on should keep your Mac humming along just fine.

Tags: archive, crash, Mac, OS X, OsX, protocol, Safari, security, zip

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