Week 6: Clear

The most clear concept this week is definitely the CD-ROM.
A CD-ROM, Compact Disc Read-Only-Memory, is a pre-pressed disc capable of storing large amounts of data. They are mass-produced by manufacturers where a glass master disc is created and used to make "stampers", and then multiple copies of the final disc are created. Once stamped by the vendor, they cannot be erased nor filled with new data. Also, CDs come in recordable (CD-R) and rewritable (CD-RW) discs, where a laser changes the properties of the dye called “burning”. To read a CD you need a CD-ROM player which all come in a standard size and format so you can load any type of CD-ROM into any CD-ROM player.
As CD-ROMs are rapidly growing, they are becoming very important to the business environment mainly because they can store large amounts of important data. A single CD has the capacity of storing the amounts of 700 floppy disks, or about 300,000 text pages. Not only has the CD-ROM replaced the floppy disk drive, it has allowed us to use our computers in ways that we never used them before with multimedia.It also works as a back up and optical storage device for your computer and they are relatively low in cost and size.

Wikipedia offers a great website for references because they explain all the aspects of a CD-ROM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM

I also found PcGuide.com to be a great resource primarily because it explains the importance of a CD-ROM. http://www.pcguide.com/ref/cd/index.htm