Concept in Definition ABC

When we talk about Computing, the concept of "picture" can have at least two meanings- A file that displays a visual presentation, such as a picture, a He drew, or a image file of storage of data, generally called "ISO image". The acronym "ISO", used in the extension of these files, is nothing more than the acronym for International Standardization Organization, since the creation and edition of these documents is governed by regulation 9660 of this body world of systematization quality.

Is ISO image can contain all the data on a storage unit, such as a CD, a DVD, a Blueray device, a HDD, a USB stick, a memory card, a micro-SD from a smartphone, the contents of a zipdrive and many other possible variants.

In general, ISO images are carried out with the aim of create copies of safety, but more than anything they are used in cloning of data. Thus, if we need to make an exact copy of all the data from one hard drive to another, we will make an image of the first and dump it on the second. This saves us time when setting up Windows computers that have been infected with computer viruses or compromised with various forms of malware or spyware. In the same way, they are useful when performing massive installations of any operating system: Windows, GNU / Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, Android, etc. In any case, such a method makes more sense in Windows, a system that brings with it basic utilities aimed at non-professional use.

A picture ISO, then, it is nothing more than a file that contains an identical copy of an entire file system, generally burned on a DVD, and governed by the aforementioned international standard.

Systems software free like BSD or GNU / Linux They are distributed in the form of ISO images: in order to use and "give life" to these images, it is necessary to use a CD / DVD recording program that allows us to "burn as an ISO image". In return, many experts point out the disadvantage of ISO images to their role in digital piracy, since it is possible to copy discs complete with copyrighted programs, movies, music albums and many other variants of digital media quickly, simply and very easily distribution. As with other technological tools, creating and editing ISO images is not itself good or bad, whereas the use for which it is used is.

It is good to know that ISO images can be loaded into a virtual machine running on any operating system, thereby saving the restart of the computer to test its benefits, or the functionality of a computer system is increased, being able to run several systems at the same time on a single computer. This is particularly interesting for home users looking to gain experience with a new system (such as those using Windows and trying to migrate to Linux) or in those programmers who create digital resources for multiple platforms, since it is thus possible for them to operate on the same computer with different operating systems.

Although ISO files generally have an .iso extension, there are other similar formats such as .cue / .bin, NRG, CIF, CCD, BWI, MDF, CSO, UIF, or ISZ. Most of these formats are readable in all programs for editing and copying these images and in many cases they have a high degree of compatibility with each other.

It is recommended use download managers like Filezilla to save time and bandwidth. It happens that, understandably, ISO images preserve almost exactly the magnitude in bytes of the multiple files that gave rise to them; consequently, an image obtained from a Windows installation DVD, for example, can reach with slack a "weight" of 4 gigabytes, whereas the complete copy of a hard disk could be even still higher. In this context, download managers offer at the same time greater velocity, on the one hand, and the possibility of pausing and restarting the download of the ISO image in a timely manner for the user, on the other.

Therefore, ISO images represent a strategy fabulous for the realization of backups and to transmit large information packages between different computers.