I have tried to download some songs from the internet and some of them download as a playable mp3 file and some of them only download as a shortcut. Why is this?
Can I use the short cut to burn the song to a cd or do I have to have the file on my hard drive? Anyone know where to get lots of Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Elvis on the net for free?

you need Kazaa lite. and yes, you need the file on your computer.  What OS are you running.  if you have XP, just get windows media player and it will allow you to burn audio CDs directly from the MP3 file.

Or better yet, get a car stereo that actually plays MP3 CDs.

You need a very large harddrive... all the files to be burned to a CD, for playing on a regular music CD player, must be WAV files.

You will need a program that converts MP3's to WAV's.  I use Goldwave (www.goldwave.com) with the LAME converter.

http://www.goldwave.com/release.html

"Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP is required for version 5. Windows 98 works, but is not officially supported. Windows NT/95 are not supported and will not work (please download v4.26 instead)."  And there is a link for the 4.26.

You can also record from LP's.  Get a cable with RCA plugs on one end, down to a 1/8" stereo plug  on the other, plugged from your line out on the stereo to the line in on your sound card.  You can record the LP.  In Goldwave, you can then process the WAV, reducing, or even eliminating pops and clicks.  Then burn to CD.  A great way to archive those old collectable LP's by esoteric artists that will never be available on CD.

I agree; I have 212 songs on a single CD.Most CD-burning software now burns "on the fly", converting the mp3s as they write, so there's no need for wav files.