Burn Baby! Burn!

Ever have so many burned CDs and DVDs that you lose track of what's in them?  How do you label your discs?  A Sharpie is always handy but doesn't really look that nice, no matter how cute your handwriting is.  Stickers are still the most common way of labeling optical media.  With high quality ink-jet and dye-sub printers, these can make CDs look very professional.  Another way to label discs is the purchase printable discs and a compatible printer.  My personal favorite way of labeling discs is Lightscribe!

What is Lightscribe?  It's direct disc labeling by burning the label-side of a compatible disc.  A combination of the optical drive and Lightscribe discs allows you to burn grayscale labels onto the disc itself.  Although not in color, it does look classy and very clean.

Aside from the cool etched look, it also doesn't change the balance of the disc, the way stickers do... although rare, if a CD sticker is applied off-center, it can cause errors in the disc due to vibrations caused by the imbalance of the spinning disc.

Most new laptops now come with Lightscribe drives (all except Macs) so you can burn discs on the go, completely personalized on the spot.  *A caveat, high-res Lightscribe labeling takes upto 20 mins PER DISC, so take that into account when planning a burn session*