Thank you for the pretty blue screen of death.
Regards,
Bob...
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"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose
as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers
with the smallest possible amount of hissing."
- Jean-Baptiste Colbert,
minister of finance to French King Louis XIV
From: "Feroze" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Not sure if it works, just got it today
Start quote " UPDATE: This link goes directly to an executable file to
be downloaded (windows only), so your browser may giove you a security
warning. Running this program does NOT install anything, it's the actual
tool itself.
Long time readers will recall that the issue of CD-R longevity thrust
itself upon me a while back when archives of my wife's music from 5
years ago turned out to have erased themselves.
To recap, there are three dyes used in CD-Rs. Cyanine, Azo, and
Phthalocyanine. Phthalocyanine.is the longest lasting, Cyanine is the
least. CD-Rs made with Cyanine can lose the data saved on them in just 2
years.
Finding out which dye is used on any given brand of CD-R can be tricky.
I purchased some Maxell CD-Rpro, which on the label and on Maxell's
website promise a 100 year lifespan. But, on opening the package, the
disks look like they are Cyanine. Granted, color cannot always tell you
what the disk is made with, since manufacturers often add their own
coloration, but still, I was suspicious.
So, I discovered the tool at the end of this link. It reads the ATIP
track pre-written onto blank CD-Rs that holds information the burner
needs to work with a given disk and decodes it to tell you where the
disk is from, who really made it, and most important, what dye is used
on it. No surprise, the supposed 100 year Maxells are made with Cyanine
dye. BIG surprise, the el cheapo COMP USA disks turned out to be using
Phthalocyanine dye, the most stable and long lasting, as are the Philips
I got at 50 disks for just $15 at Office Depot.
So, if you are concerned about longevity in CD-Rs, you just might want
to grab this little tool. " End Quote
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/CDRIdentifier.exe
