Windows only: BurnAware Free burns data, audio, and video CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. Since we last mentioned BurnAware, it was bought up by a software company, turned shareware, and has now made the round trip back to freeware—so if you ran into the shareware version when you tried downloading it, BurnAware Free is worth a grab. There are still shareware versions that support advanced features like simultaneous disc writing, but chances are you'll be happy with the free version. This one could come in particularly handy if and when you actually get a Blu-ray burner on your PC. BurnAware is freeware, Windows only. For other great alternatives, check out previously mentioned ImgBurn or Totally Free Burner.

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Windows only: Free application Totally Free Burner burns audio, video, data, and ISO CDs and DVDs in just a few clicks. The app covers almost all of your potential CD and DVD burning needs, and it does so through a slick and simple interface. As FreewareGenius points out, drag and drop support for adding files to a project would make this a truly great app, but even without that functionality it's an impressive piece of freeware. Chances are by this point you've found a reliable burning tool, but if not, the freeware, Windows only Totally Free Burner isn't a bad offering.

The video above from DIY web site Instructables demonstrates four different CD spindle-repurposing projects from start-to-finish. We've seen variations on most of these projects before, like the toilet paper dispenser, bagel holder, and cable organiser, but the video provides step-by-step instructions and a few clever tweaks for alternate uses. The bagel holder, for example, becomes a sandwich caddy with an extra cut, and the cable organizer becomes a rope and cable dispenser with a couple of small adjustments. If you've tried one of the repurposing methods since we first covered it, let's hear how it's working out in the comments.

Destroy your optical media like CDs and DVDs without the fuss or mess with the portable and lightweight Disc Eraser gadget. The Disc Eraser is a pocket-sized plastic apparatus that will make your CD or DVD unreadable in any disc drive or CD/DVD player after it is used. The Disc Eraser opens like a book—place the disc on the small ring, close the lid, and move the plastic slider up and down along the surface. The slider will destroy the surface of the CD so you no longer need to buy a shredder that will spit half of the optical media back into the air and create a mess that you wouldn't want to clean. The best part? The Disc Eraser is completely safe—even around children, is extremely small, promotes recycling, and will only set you back $US15.99 (plus $US5.99 postage to Australia).

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Windows only: FileCheckMD5, a free stand-alone utility, is designed as a simple means of generating and comparing two MD5 files against each other for verifying burned CDs/DVDs. Because it's a stand-alone program that can run from any directory, however, it makes for a nice addition to the root of any disc you're burning and passing along. Throw the app and your original MD5 (from the files you burned for them) onto the disc, and they can check if any problems they're having are due to a bad burn. It's a simple, fast, and free tool for anyone who does a good deal of burning. FileCheckMD5 is a free download for Windows systems only.

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Web-based album art library and search engine AllCDCovers just may have the missing art you've been looking to fill in your digital music collection. Despite its name, AllCDCovers carries both album art, DVD covers, and game covers, front and back, with pretty high res versions available for free download. AllCDCovers didn't have the indie artist I tried, so the really obscure stuff might not be here; still, when the iTunes Store fails you it may be a good stop. Share your favourite online source of downloadable album art in the comments.

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Windows only: Freeware application Desk Drive monitors your computer for new media—like a new CD, DVD, or thumb drive—then automatically creates a desktop shortcut pointing to your newly mounted media. Disabling autoplay is safer and less annoying than leaving it enabled, but that means you have to open up My Computer every time you plug in a thumb drive or insert a new disc. Desk Drive gives you quick and easy access to that media from your desktop as soon as you plug it in, similar to the default (and arguably better) behaviour found on Macs. The downside: Desk Drive takes up way too much memory (around 17MB in my test), so it may not be worth it unless you've got boatloads of RAM.

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The Online Tech Tips blog delves into a little-discussed feature of Windows Vista that can turn your spare blank discs into drag-and-drop bins for extra files. The Live File System mounts writable CDs and DVDs as pseudo-flash drives, letting you add files to them on a continual basis rather than having to initiate one big burn session. You can't recover space from added files, but if you've got blank discs to spare, Live File System can be a handy write-as-you-go backup method.

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The How-To Geek weblog details how to create a desktop or keyboard shortcut to instantly eject your CD or DVD drive on your Windows computer. The special sauce lies in using the previously mentioned command line tool NirCmd, and you're basically creating a shortcut that executes NirCmd's "cdrom open" command. Quick and simple, when you're done you'll be ejecting from the keyboard any time you want. If you're looking to safely eject your USB drives, on the other hand, we've covered that, too.

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Windows only: Freeware application Nero DriveSpeed slows down the read speed of your CD or DVD drive so you don't have to endure the loud jet-engine whirring of your drive every time you want to listen to a CD or watch a DVD on your computer. Obviously there are plenty of times when the 48x read speed of your drive comes in handy—particularly when you are transferring data from an optical disc—but if you're just listening to a CD, for example, your drive really doesn't need to spin up to top speed. After installation, DriveSpeed can prompt you whenever you insert a disk and you can choose whether to run in Fast or Silent mode. Nero DriveSpeed is freeware, Windows only.

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