I got a little freeware "CD Burner Pro3" which will burn *.wav files to an audio CD, but won't for *.mp3 files.
Other than that, it seems to work pretty well.

How does one convert mp3 and other formats to "audio" tracks that can be played on ordinary CD players?

BTW; tried that stunt of jumping the earphone jack over to the line in jack. It does not work, sad to say (either overdrives or underdrives the recording software) and I have yet to figure out how to put online radio streams on to CD.