Article first published as What Is An ISO File And How Do I Use Them? on Technorati.
Wikipedia defines an ISO file as:
An ISO image is an archive file (also known as a disc image) of an optical disc in a format defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This format is supported by many software vendors. ISO image files typically have a file extension of .iso.
To expand on that definition further, an .iso image is much like a .zip file. You can think of it as a container that holds all the files and folders contained on a CD or DVD but unlike a .zip file an ISO is not compressed. ISO files are useful for keeping backups of CD’s and DVD’s and for storing the contents of CD’s or DVD’s on portable hard-drives or uploading and downloading them on the internet. Continue reading “What are ISO files and how do I use them?”