On Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:59:41 -0500, Patrick Shanahan <paka@MyRealBox.com> wrote:

With the compression algorithms incorporated in modem transfers, the is probably very little difference in transfer time. The bz2 files are more tightly compressed and would allow for less compression during transfer versus the opposite condition for gzipped files.

err ... well... 8) this isnt true, the modem compression is very limited and is no diferent from the normal compression (you can even use the gzip algorithm) its limited because it can only compresses using a very small buffer, usually around 4Kb IIRC i dont know the block size for gzip, but for bzip, even in the fastest mode (-1), it is about 100Kb, for -9 its about 900Kb as we already know, compressing a compressed file is useless doesnt matter if is well compressed or badly compressed, the final file is still a very packed file that have very low repeat rate and so compresses badly no matter the options or algorithm used so when compressing text, computer side compresion (.gz, .bz2, etc) is always alot better than the modem compression because of the very low block size of the last one compressing a compressed file is useless for both computer side software and for modem side, no matter if the original file is well compressed or badly compressed if we are transfering only compressed files via a modem, we can even get a better speed by disabling the modem compression but usually isnt worth it because we transfer also text in the form of html pages, http, ftp, etc commands and finally the tcp/ip headers can be also a little compressed so using gzip or bzip2 is the same for the modem, the smaller of both will finish first all the time higuita -- Naturally the common people don't want war... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. -- Hermann Goering, Nazi and war criminal, 1883-1946