I want to produce CD labels on my Mac for the classical concerts I’ve conducted for the last 40 years, which I’ve been burning onto CDs using Pro Tools. Is there a simple, affordable application for producing paste-on labels, which I prefer for my CDs?

Sure. We’ve used and enjoyed Smile on My Mac’s DiscLabel ($35.95, www.smileonmymac.com) and BeLight’s Disc Cover ($34.95, www.belightsoft.com). If you’re looking for less expensive options, iWinSoft sells CD/DVD Label Maker for Mac ($29.95, www.iwinsoft
.com), Big Rooster Software offers CD Labeler ($9.99, www.bigrooster.net), and there’s even a Dashboard widget called iLabel-it CD (free, www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/reference/ilabelitcd.html), although the widget’s labels are very bare-bones.

BeLight's Disc Cover has lots of templates and clip art to kick-start your label designs...if you are a user of labels.

But we at Mac|Life HQ prefer the ol’ “writing on them with a nontoxic marker” method instead, and we’ll tell you why: Adhesive labels can cause problems, especially if you use a slot-loading drive like on a MacBook or iMac—those drives can get pretty hot, and the adhesive can start to fail, especially around the edges. This can throw your CD off balance when it’s spinning, and the disc can even get stuck in the drive. Many Epson printers, such as the Stylus Photo R280 ($99.99, www.epson.com) can print right on top of printable discs, which is much safer. Or you could always invest in a LightScribe optical drive, which both burns the disc and then laser-etches a design into the top—LaCie sells Mac-compatible external DVD burners with LightScribe starting at $89.99 (www.lacie.com).