Best utility for different jobs?

[Gersen]

howdy all,

part newbie question / part poll, but my knowledge of burning/ripping utilities and cd protection is way outta date.

What would you consider the best CD burning software, and if you use different utilities for different jobs, what do you like for:

burning individual files to CD?

copying protected CDs?

copying audio CDs?

ripping ISOs?

burning ISOs?

Also, if you know of any hardware that rocks at copying protected CDs, or any hardware to definitely avoid, I'd like to know. Got a lot of learnin' to do if I want to catch up.

thanks,

Gersen