Scott showed me an article that compared dozens of DVD writers currently available, and it looks like the best choice for me would be the Sony DRU500AX - an internal IDE model that supports DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, CD-R, CD-RW, and a few other methods - it is the only one that supports this many formats, so would be a good bet to still be useful in 5 years or so, once all the formats have shaken out and a standard takes hold. At $300, it will have to wait a while though. Perhaps once the price drops by a third or so I'll be able to get one.

I was thinking about my DVD-RAM, and the DVD media it can read but not write to at the moment was all written with it's predecessor, and older Toshiba W1111 - which was capable of only 2.6/5.2gb media (2 sided flippable cartridge). This 2.6gb media works in the new W2002 drive, which is 4.7/9.4gb. I am starting to think I need to test it with a 4.7gb media - it may not be able to write to the older media that was formatted with the old drive. If it works with the new media, I'll need to buy another cartridge or two.

Played more Deus Ex last night, this time had the willpower to save the game and turn it off. Awesome game - this game is as good as Half Life - with better graphics. The plot involves a conspiracy theorist's worse nightmares, involving the Illuminati, Majestic 12, FEMA, the UN, several huge corporations, a couple of Triads, the Knights Templar, and a few other groups...