If you're still listening to your music on those quaint, old-fashioned CDs, you should realize that you're a friggin' dinosaur and everyone's laughing at you behind your back. You need to make the high-tech switch to MP3s -- the official music format of the next millennium. MusicMatch Jukebox is the software you can use to "rip" CDs to your hard drive, and it's just been updated -- Version 4.10.0034 provides a faster database than Version 4, plus higher-quality recording. Come on, you wuss. Join the human race. Become one of us.

If you're happy being old-fashioned, those quaint CDs can now be recorded with a minimum of fuss. Philips makes the CDR765, a double-CD deck, so you can copy directly from the CD player to the CD recorder. Recordable CDs are still so expensive that it hardly seems worth it to make multiple copies of the new Def Leppard album, but if you're one of those obsessive types who loves to make mixed tapes, no doubt you'll cream your jeans over this one. In addition, a number of manufacturers have recently announced the introduction of CD-Rs that can hold up to 80 minutes of music -- previously, CD-Rs maxed out at 70 minutes. Looks like your neighbors will never get any sleep.

Thomas S. Roche is a GettingIt staff writer.