Local to remote (flags archive, verbose, compress):
rsync -e ssh -avz SOURCE user@host:DESTINATION
Remote to local (flags archive, verbose, compress):
rsync -e ssh -avz user@host:SOURCE DESTINATION
A trailing slash on the path means to copy the contents of the directory. No trailing slash means to copy the directory itself.
Create archive with compression:
tar -cvzf newarchive.tgz myfile
Unpack an archive (extract, verbose, gzip, file):
tar -xvzf myarchive.tgz
List the contents of existing archive (wihtout unpacking):
tar -tzf myarchive.tgz