Hey guys,

Sorry for the late update! This is an online report on last week's meeting (23 April 2010).

So what we have learned last week? Peripherals.

Peripherals are devices that are attached to the computer but are not part of it. Printers, speakers, keyboards, optical drives and monitors are some examples of peripherals.

Now that you have a rough idea of what exactly is peripherals, we shall recall what we have learned so far in a bit more detailed. Lessons on optical drives and monitors were conducted by Timothy Goh and I would say that it was quite interesting as there were many 'did you know?' facts besides being exposed to something different.

Here are some interesting facts of optical drives:

1. LD, CD, DVD, Blu-ray, HD DVD are all optical medias.
2. They worked using principals based on light.
3. ROM drives have a longer life span compared to RW drives.

In addition to that, we discussed on how optical drives are made, their various speeds, interface connectors and capacity. For CD, it can store up to 700 MB of data or 80 minutes of audio. A DVD has a capacity of 4.7 GB, however a dual-layer DVD has a capacity of 7.4 GB. Now, with Blu-ray disc, it is possible to store 25 GB for a single layer and 60 GB for dual layer. That's one-sixth of a normal hard drive!

Next on was monitors. Generally, there are two types of monitors, Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) and Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). For monitors, there are a few output options: VGA, DVI and HDMI. The sizes for LCD monitors can range from 15" to 30". Furthermore, there are three types of LCD panels, namely TN, VA, IPS. Their difference are colour accuracy and viewing angles.

That's all for now!

Prepared by,

Leow Ker Leet

Webmaster 2 '09/10