Gavin is, as usual, quite correct.  The reason alcohol needs to be excluded
is the fact that it will attack the covering of the CD and in time will
make the CD unreadable.  Big Bummer!  And yes with 16x, 20x and 24x speed,
balance is all-important.

You can get CD-Rs on which you can print directly, they have a somewhat
rough, satiny  surface.  The machine which allow you to print on them are
expensive and not all that good.

We get our CD-Rs silk-screened.

It is quite easy to identify alcohol based felt pens.  Here are the
instructions.

Step 1, go to an office supply store.
Step 2, identify the area where they display markers.
Step 3, select a marker with a color you like.
Step 4, grasp the marker, cap up, firmly in your right hand.
Step 5, grasp the cap of the marker using your thumb and forefinger of your
left hand.
Step 6, separate your hands while holding to the various marker components
as above.
Step 7, bring your right hand close to your nose, with the marker pointing
up.  Caution, do not insert marker in your nose.
Step 8, if your eyes start to emit water, your head starts spinning, your
knees buckle, you say "PeeHew"  and you feel like pulling your hand away,
yet strangely want to keep it close to your nose, you are holding an
alcohol based marker.  If you do not experience any of the above symptoms,
the marker is either water or oil based.  It is up to you whether you wish
to taste the marker point.
Step 9, replace the marker cap on the marker by joining you hands again.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
Hicomp America, Inc.
[log in to unmask]        www.hicomp.com
(800) 323-8863   (281) 288-7438  fax: (281) 355-6879



-----Original Message-----
From:   Gavin Scott [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Thursday, July 24, 1997 1:52 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: CD labels

Denys:
> Please make sure that your marker is either oil or water (not alcohol)
> based.

after Larry:
> I don't know if this would work, but are you wanting to mark it
permanently
> or just temporarily?  It seems that a Sharpy TM on the non-data side
> (generally, I refer to this as the "Top" :) ) would work once the ink
> dries.

As Denys points out, I seem to recall somewhere reading that if you use
the wrong kind of pen to write on the top surface of a CD-R then it
may slowly eat through the surface of the disk, rendering unreadable
AT SOME UNPREDICTABLE POINT IN THE FUTURE.  It would be a rather rude
shock to find that all the CDs you have been creating suddenly stopped
being readable some months later.

Another CD-R trivia item: The first generation of DVD-ROM drives that
are starting to show up are apparently unable to read the "green" type
of CD-R disks I'm told.  The "gold" variety I believe are OK, and a future
generation of the DVD drives are supposed to fix the problem if I recall
correctly.  So if you're shipping software on CD-R media, you might
have problems with some customers being able to read your discs if you
don't use the right ones.

Also CD-R discs have recently dropped in price radically, making them
a more viable option for software distribution for a lot of people I
suspect.  You can now buy single discs at Fry's for ~$5.

G.