My opinion:
Program: Windows Media Player works the best of the ones I've tried, believe it or not. dbpoweramp is also pretty good. Gonna try EAC as per JohnConnor's suggestion though, looks good so far.
Codec: MP3 is most universal. 256kbps, 320 is you want that extra bit of quality. Usually that jump will only be noticable on very intense songs (metal, some synth, intense orchestral, etc), and even then only if you have really, really sharp ears

128kbps is pretty bad, 196 is /tolerable/.