Okay, I'm being super-indecisive here. Someone help me out.

Here's what I want:

• An external CD-ROM that can connect to both my Windows desktop and my Apple laptop. The Windows desktop has FireWire & USB2. The Apple has FireWire and USB1. All other things being equal, I'd prefer if it had both FireWire and USB
  
• Speed isn't terribly important. The slowest ones out there seem to be fast enough for me.
  
• At the same time, the transfer rate for USB1 is likely to be too slow and therefore the Apple's specs require FireWire.
  
• It'd be very nice if it got power from the data link and didn't require an external power supply.
  
• I need CD writing software for both computers. I'd rather not pay for full retail versions when they often come with. I'd prefer Nero for the PC and I have no experience with Mac software.

Right now, I'm leaning toward the LaCie Pocket FireWire CD-RW and the SmartDisk FireWire Portable CD-R/W. They both require no external power supply, are 24-10-24 drives and are FireWire-only. But neither comes with Nero. (The LaCie may not come with Windows software at all; the MacMall site claims it does, but the LaCie site doesn't.)

There's also the Kanguru Slim CDRW which can support both FireWire and USB2, but it's unclear if I have to buy extra stuff. It's also unclear what software comes with it. Actually, it looks like I'd have to spend $40 for a USB2 attachment and $60 for a FireWire attachment on top of an already expensive unit.

My other idea is to buy a universal USB2/FireWire enclosure, like the ADS Dual Link Drive Kit (which I linked before), plus a regular IDE CDRW drive. The drawbacks here are that it'd require an external power supply, which isn't really too bad, plus I can't seem to find a drive that comes with both PC and Mac software, regardless of what versions, and buying the software by itself is quite expensive. (And, yes, I want to do more than just burn music from iTunes.) This would allow me to potentially put a hard drive in the case for sneakernetting large amounts of data. But the only person I'm liable to do this with only has USB1 on his computer (incidentally making USB2 irrelevant for immediate purposes). I suppose I could get a FireWire card for him for $30 or so, but then we'd have to deal with Linux compatibility with it and I can find no real data, plus, it starts to add up in cost. It'd almost be as easy to shut down computers and plug in raw IDE devices than mess with pluggable media.

The only remaining idea is to get a heavyweight FireWire CD-RW drive, but whether or not I could swap in a hard drive would pretty much be a crap shoot. But, again, that may not be a huge concern. Plus it would add the requirement for a power adapter. It would write faster, as would the above solution, but 3.5 minutes versus 1.5 minutes isn't a huge deal. It's not like I'm going to be using it 24/7. This is probably the cheapest option, though.

I think I'm leaning towards one of the dedicated slim CD-RWs, as I'd like to be able to pull it out and just go. I guess the biggest thing that concerns me is the software. Does Easy CD suck as much as it used to? Does anyone have any thoughts on Mac software? For that matter, is there anything free for either OS? I'm happy with mkisofs and cdrecord, if they'll work.

Sorry for the big wad of indecision, but you know how it goes sometimes.