anyone know a good programme for taking songs from a cd to mp3
Windows Media Player?
FreeRip. It's freeware, and as long as you're connected to the 'net while you're ripping, it will access it's *vast* user-updated database of cd's, to fill all the info in for you (year, genre, album title, artist, song titles, etc). I absolutely love it.
Gotta ditto Windows Media Player. Works well, mp3s sound good and you have total control over bit rate, plus the database is huge and easy to use.