This tutorial assumes that you have your .pod files in a directory called PODS located on your C:\ drive...thus in the C:\PODS directory. (You can simply replace PODS with whatever your directory really is.) 

Here we go... 
1. Download either podzip.exe or podzip.zip and save it to your c:\pods directory. 

2. If you downloaded the zipped version, unzip it to the c:\pods directory. 

3. Now you should have PODZIP.EXE in the same directory as your .pod files. 

4. Open a DOS window, (for those who don't know how...click START, PROGRAMS, MS DOS PROMPT). This should put you in a DOS window sitting at the C:\WINDOWS prompt. 

5. Change to the C:\PODS directory by typing the following... cd\pods then press [ENTER]. 

6. Type in the PODZIP command podzip myfile.pod newfile.pod but instead of typing myfile.pod, type the name of the .pod you want to shrink and instead of typing in newfile.pod, type in the name you want the new .pod to have after the process is finished. 

For example...to shrink my Dirty Bird Truck (podnamed dbird.pod) I would type the following... podzip dbird.pod dbird2.pod and TADA...I have a new, smaller .pod file called dbird2.pod that runs beautifully. 

NOTE: If you need to change to a different drive (ie. say your directory is D:\PODS...) then you would need to type d: and press [ENTER] before doing step number 5 above...then cd\pods followed by [ENTER] would put you in the D:\PODS directory. 


Advanced DOS procedure

Posted by larryboy on December 07, 1999 at 23:10:04:

Someone asked me how to podzip all their pods in one swell foop. I hesitate to post this since there are so many DOS-related questions but here it is. If you are comfortable with DOS, try it. If not, hit your back button now!

1. Say you have a dir called c:\mypods that contains all your pod files.

2. Create a directory called c:\mypods\zipped

3. Copy podzip.exe into c:\mypods

4. cd\mypods

Ok, here we go... the "for" command is one of the least known but most powerful commands in DOS. Type the following command EXACTLY as it appears and every POD in the directory will be converted and placed into c:\mypods\zipped

for %c in (*.pod) do podzip %c .\zipped\%c

When the dust clears, all your zipped pods should be in c:\mypods\zipped. NOTE: If you intend to use the for statement in a batch file you will have to use two percent signs instead of one (i.e. %%c instead of %c)

Hope this helps some of you with a large number of pods to convert. I think it is also a demonstration of how it still pays to know your way around the command line even in this point-and-click world.