Saving Data to CD/DVD

The Redding, California Family History Center held a Seminar yesterday.  For a small area they had a very good turn out, 250 attendees.  The sessions were well planned with some of them repeating and the instructors of the sessions I attended were knowledgeable in their field.  Probably the best session for me of the day was one on Digital Genealogy.  I am pretty experienced about taking digital pictures of documents and saving them.  The most significant thing I learned is the fact that when you burn a CD or DVD the data is stored on a thin magnetic film on the TOP of the disc.  If you write on it with a Sharpie or Marks A Lot that has just destroyed data in that spot. The instructor showed us a photo of a disc that he had placed a Post It on and when he removed the Post It, it peeled away a part of that magnetic film. From the bottom side you can see the difference in color to see where the data is written.  If you must write on the top of the disc with one of these pens you should write over that area where no data has been written.  The disc burns from the inside out.  It is now possible to obtain pens that are designed for writing on these discs.