A set of tools to convert video to/from the VideoNow Disc Player proprietary format.

http://pvdtools.sourceforge.net/

This project on the the Code Project web site shows you how to build a roll-your-own media player for Win32, using the standard multimedia API.

http://www.codeproject.com/audio/hmediaplayer.asp

Marcel de Wijs has written an article on creating CRC codes in C#.

http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/marcelcrcencoding.asp

Another backup program that is based around the Zip standard. Supports deflate64, spanning, and other advanced Zip features. This is Win32 shareware.

Version 2.5.4.53 shipped in December, 2003.

http://www.backup2001.com/page2.html

A command line archiving program for manipulating zip files. 7-zip features great compression ratios, support for quite a few other archive formats, and is free.
DataCompression.info user Gregg A. had this to say: 7-Zip is a great archiver that works with many of the popular archive formats, as well as a new one of its own. This is my favorite compression tool now because it is so universal and it’s open-source.

Version 3.12 shipped in November, 2003.

http://www.7-zip.org/

A C++ hierarchy that is designed to efficiently read and write bit streams. Needless to say, this is quite useful for compression programs.

Version 1.0 shipped in December, 2003.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mffmbitstream/

From the launch:

Hello, and be welcome to ReallyRareWares, a site for researchers (or nostalgic people like me) that miss the old days of multimedia encoding. Here you’ll find reviews and history of old software (encoders and decoders), deceased codecs (VQF, ePAC), oddities (AUPECg2, Astrid AAC), and so on, as well as downloads.

http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/

This is a compiler for web pages, that uses various techniques to squeeze the fat out of your web pages. This includes things a simple as white-space reduction and as complex as JavaScript compression.

Ron M. had this to say: This is a great program, very highly recommended for Web developers. It lets you write your code full of comments and extra space for readability, and then strips it all out automatically for the live site. My pages have been noticeably faster & very hard to decipher the code on the other end. It’s been reliable and easy to get used to.

http://www.w3compiler.com/

ZLib.Ada is a thick binding to the popular compression/decompression library ZLib. It is providing Ada style access to the ZLib C library.

http://zlib-ada.sourceforge.net/

Star Encoding performs some preprocessing on text files, enabling standard compressors to do somewhat better on the files. This article explains the transform and provides some sample code.

http://marknelson.us/articles/Star/

FlyZip is a compressor designed to help you save space on your Palm O/S device, including Palm-based phones.

FlyZip XR 3.02 shipped in December, 2003.

http://www.fly-zip.com/

This commercial product takes care of managing your attachments. It appears to do
this transparently, so you don’t even have to think about zipping up a big
attachment before sending.

http://www.mapilab.com/outlook/attachments_compressor/

The folks at BitJazz maintain a nice list of links to data compression directories. That makes this page sort of a meta-directory.

http://www.bitjazz.com/bitjazz/links/compression_software.shtml

Michael Dipperstein describes his personal quest for understanding and implementation of LZSS coding. Full source included.

http://michael.dipperstein.com/lzss/

A server and download accelerator for your Microsoft web server. The site says that TurboIIS is an advanced component for Microsoft Internet Information Servers, designed specifically with the aim of lowering band consumption, accelerating download times of static and dynamic content, and preventing redundant access to database resources. 30 day trial download available!

Reader Alfred S. had this to say: Very impressive performance compared to other similar products.

Version 4.0 is shipping as of December, 2003.

http://www.turboiis.com/

This product fixes artifacts and defects in your JPEG images.

Version 1.0 shipped in December, 2003.

http://www.vicman.net/jpegfixer/index.htm

This program is designed to help you squeeze the maximium amount of space out of GIF files while keeping the image quality at an acceptable level. Commercial code, but a free download is available.

Version 4.0 is shipping as of December, 2003.

http://www.gold-software.com/ago.shtml

The zlib home page. zlib is a free software package that implements the deflate compression algorithm popularized in PKWare’s PKZIP product. zlib is designed to be patent free, and is free or restrictions.

Version 1.2.1 is shipping as of December, 2003.

http://www.gzip.org/zlib/index.html

This is a web proxy that compresses pages using standard gzip compression, making them a lot smaller for serving up over low-speed connections. Not only does it convert text to gzip encoding, it also converts images to low-quality JPEGs for maximum space savings.

Version 1.3b is shipping as of November, 2003.

http://ziproxy.sourceforge.net/

A compressor that is designed to create the smallest possible deflate-compatible Zip files.

http://www.clrmame.com/binaries/BJWFlate154.zip

PentaZip has a very nice feature set, supports advanced encryption, large archives, Windows shell integration, and all the other good stuff you’ve come to expect. Also supports a wide variety of languages.

Release 6.0.1.190 shipped in November, 2003

http://www.pentazip.com/PZ6_en/home_e.htm

A site that has a port of a drag and drop version of LHA to Mac OS X. My Japanese referrer tells me this version does not support MacBinary so resource forks will be lost by this program.

http://www.fan.gr.jp/~sakai/

WinGZip is an small freeware utility for working with files produced by gzip utility (usually it’s files with .gz or .tgz extension) and also create such files. Main features include the compressing, decompressing and testing the integrity of gzip files.

http://www.irnis.net/soft/wingzip/

WinBZip2 is an small freeware utility for working with files produced by bzip2 utility (usually it’s files with .bz2 extension) and also create such files. Main features include the compressing, decompressing and testing the integrity of bzip2 files.

http://www.irnis.net/soft/winbzip2/

This web site is run by the author of MacLHA, a drag and drop version of LHA for Mac OS. You can also get access to a drag and drop LHA expander for Mac OS here.

http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA008909/

This product from Teranex removes DCT blocking artifacts from MPEG streams. It also features a few other neat details such as adding the “film look” to digital video.

http://www.teranex.com/products/imageenhancenr.htm

SNG (Scriptable Network Graphics) is a minilanguage designed specifically to represent the entire contents of a PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file in an editable form. Thus, SNGs representing elaborate graphics images and ancillary chunk data can be readily generated or modified using only text tools.

Version 1.0.2 shipped in November, 2003.

http://sng.sourceforge.net/

The software reviewer at the SlaughterHouse speculated that commercial developers of zip programs ought to just pack it in when they see how good QuickZip is. If you agree or disagree, why not post an evaluation here so we can benefit from your experience? It seems to be free, plus has support for Chinese and several European languages.

Release 3.05 is shipping as of November, 2003.

http://www.quickzip.org/

This app from AbyssMedia is advertised as being able to turn your computer into complete audio recording studio. That means you have the ability to record from external inputs directly to MP3, OGG, WMA, or WAV format. Includes niceties such as MP3 and OGG tag editors, Voice Activated recording, skin support, and more.

Version 6.05 is shipping in November, 2003.

http://www.abyssmedia.com/mp3recorder/index.shtml

A shareware program that uses the look and feel of Windows Explorer to navigate Zip files.

Version 4.7 of this program is shipping as of November, 2003.

http://www.ftppro.com/1stzip.htm