Hot replies to burning questions

By CHRIS BARTON

I burn therefore I am. Whether and how you use CD burners can indeed define your very being.

These devices are a hot topic for netizens, raising questions about morality, legality and liberty. So it was with some trepidation that I faced my CD burning virginity.

I was driven to this reckless act by my digital camera and my computer's lack of hard disk storage. When I bought the PC two years ago, I didn't take my own advice and get the biggest disk I could. I compromised for some other features - foolishly kidding myself that 10 gigabytes was more space than I could ever use.

I hadn't factored in the digital camera and uploading its digital film to my PC. All my digital snaps, at about 500 kilobytes a photo, are rapidly filling my hard drive.

What to do? Store the photos, and anything else that's cluttering your disk, somewhere else - like on a CD-Rom. Fortunately, when I bought my PC I did take some of my own advice and got a CD writer for backup.

Backup is when you regularly save important files and documents on to some other form of media, so that when your PC goes fut, you haven't lost everything. A very wise precaution which I've also completely ignored - always meaning to do the backup tomorrow.

But with disk storage running out, I could procrastinate no more. The process is so painless, I can't believe I've been so slack about it.

Get your CD drive. Mine came ready with my PC. But there is a huge range of these on the market. Most are installed into your PC, but you can get external models that attach with wires.

As well as being writers or burners, these drives are readers or players - meaning they can play your existing CDs and CD-Roms. The ideal drive to get is one that uses both CD-R (recordable) and CD-RW (read/write or erasable) media.

Also try to get the fastest drive you can afford. Speeds are shown by a string letter such as "32x12x8x", which translates as: reads at 32 times, writes to CD-R media at 12 times, and writes to CD-RW media at 8 times - the bigger the number the faster.

Get your burning software. My PC came with Easy CD Creator from Roxio. I could have used Microsoft's Media Player, which comes with Windows XP, but I've been a bit put off by it lately.

Every time I open Media Player it seems to want to run off to the web and do things behind my back.

Anyway, I'm glad I stayed with Easy CD Creator. The Platinum version of the software costs $159 is packed with features - doing everything from printing CD labels to allowing me to copy my old vinyl LPs to CD - and is a breeze to use.

Get your blank disks. This is not as easy as it sounds. You have to match disks to the speed of your drive and choose which type of disk you want. CD-R means CD-recordable and they are the cheapest blanks (around $1.80 each with case).

These are write once, read multiple (Worm) disks that work just like standard CDs and can be used on a standard CD player. CD-RW disks, which means CD-rewritable, are more expensive (about $4.95 each) but let you erase the disk and reuse them. The downside is CD-RW media doesn't work in all players.

Burn, baby, burn. With Easy CD you organise the files on your computer's disk that you want to burn by moving them into a kind of holding pen which shows you how much space will be used on the target CD.

The holding pen is necessary because generally with CD-R you burn all the files in one go. Click record and about 10 minutes later (depending on the speed of your drive) it's done.

The Platinum version of Easy CD let me organise my photos into albums and create a self-running CD to share with others.

With a CD-RW blank and the right software such as Direct CD, the blank disk is like a big (650MB) floppy drive. Just drag and drop the files from your PC to the CD when you need to.

Burning questions. Having broken my burning virginity, it was now time to explore more pleasures. There's a bizarre collection of MP3 audio files on my PC, a few collected by myself - strictly for research purposes - and a few more by other family members.

To burn an audio CD, the process is much the same as with the photos. Move the files into a holding pen which tells you how many minutes each track takes. Keep adding them until you get to the limit - usually 74 minutes. Then hit the record button and 10 minutes later, voila.

It can't be that easy, I thought, as I gingerly carried the freshly burned disk to my stereo CD player. But it was.

How did I feel? It's a strange combination of elation mixed with vague unease. Am I a criminal? Technically, I may have breached copyright, although it's generally accepted some copying for personal use is allowed.

Whether that can be extended to copying over the net is moot. But when you see the vast level of music trading that's happening on the net, you can't help but realise the concept of copyright is undergoing dramatic change.

It's also hard to believe you're stealing when technology makes the process so easy - a bit like taking candy from, er ... a rich, fat person.

Speed ratings

Roxio

Easy CD Creator

Burning software