Hack84.Transfer Folders, Not Just Individual Files


Hack 84. Transfer Folders, Not Just Individual Files

You can transfer only individual files using Skype's file-transfer facility. This hack shows you how to transfer groups of files, as well as whole folders of files.

Works with: Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X versions of Skype.

Figure 10-7. Configuring Skype to provide a phone line for your home alarm system


Skype opens one window per file transferred. This can be extremely tedious for the recipient, who must authorize every file transfer in turn. Unfortunately, you can't just specify a whole folder or directory tree to transfer. To do that, you must first bundle the folders and files into an archive (a special file that acts as a container for other files and folders), transfer the archive, and have the recipient unpack the archive at the other end. Though be warned, any archive you create must be easy for the recipient to unpack, so choose your archive format with care!

Here are some simple and easy-to-use options.

10.7.1. Transferring Folders Among Windows Machines

Windows comes with its own file archive and compression tool. Within Windows Explorer, you can select files and/or folders, and then right-click to turn them into a compressed (zipped) archive file. You can even add a password to the archive so that the recipient will have to enter the (same) password to uncompress, open, and extract the files and folders contained within it.

The Windows zip archive tool is, of course, free, as it comes with Windows. However, many people prefer other third-party archive tools, such as WinZip (http://www.WinZip.com/), to the one that is bundled free with Windows.

10.7.2. Transferring Folders Among Linux Machines

Linux, being a variant of Unix, has the ubiquitous compress and tar archive commands. Many Linux distributions also include gzip (GNU zip), which was designed as a replacement for compress, and the free zip and unzip command-line tools from Info-ZIP (http://www.info-zip.org/). By using these tools, it is easy to create an archive of several files and/or folders, which you can send to a Skype user using a single file transfer.

10.7.3. Transferring Folders Among Mac OS X Machines

Mac OS X comes with its own tool to create zipped archives. But sadly, even though the resulting archive has a .zip suffix, the archives it creates are incompatible with the Windows zip archive tool. However, archives generated on one Mac OS X machine can be unpacked seamlessly on another.

Mac OS X is built on top of variants of the Unix operating system (namely, the Mach 3.0 operating system and services based on the 4.4 Berkeley Software Distribution). Consequently, like Linux, it has the ubiquitous compress and tar archive commands. It also comes with the command-line tools gzip, zip, and unzip by default.

Perhaps the most popular third-party compression and archive tool for the Mac is StuffIt (http://www.stuffit.com/).

10.7.4. Transferring Folders Among Diverse Machines

Transferring folders and/or files among diverse machinesthat is, machines of different architectures and running different operating systemsposes a number of problems. Differing rules for filenames and file extensions can cause problems. And finding a common archive format that all machines recognize and understand can be difficult.

One technique that seems to work well in my experience is to use the free Info-ZIP archive utility on Linux and Mac OS X, and the native Windows zip compression tool. Check your Linux and Mac OS X installations, as you will likely find Info-ZIP already installed. Just try entering the commands zip and unzip in a terminal window, and see if you get a command summary in response. Archives created by the Info-ZIP utility and the Windows zip compression tool interoperate well (see Figure 10-8).

Figure 10-8. Using a zip archive to transfer folders among diverse machines using Skype


On Linux and Mac OS X, you can create an archive of a complete folder using the command:

 zip r filename.zip'your folder name' 

You can unpack it using the command:

 unzip filename.zip 

Just type "zip" or "unzip" at the command prompt to see more options for manipulating archives.

You can create zip archives within Windows Explorer by right-clicking after selecting the files or folders you want to add to a zip archive (see Figure 10-9). You can unpack an archive from within Windows Explorer by double-clicking on it or right-clicking and selecting the appropriate tool using Open With.




Skype Hacks
Skype Hacks: Tips & Tools for Cheap, Fun, Innovative Phone Service
ISBN: 0596101899
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 168

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