cross platform CD-R support

I'm not 100% sure if this is where i should post these questions but here it goes...

I am curious to whether or not there is a way to format a CD-R to support both mac and windows machines?

I know the new Nero6 just came out and they have a format called UDF 2.50. I am reading through the Osta.org UDF specification, and its just too dry of reading for me.

does this format make cd-r's so that they can be used in any cd burner to burn files to the disk? if not is there such a program that would do that?

Just write the CD following Nero's reccomendations on the burning screen under the ISO tab. Also, it might be a good idea to uncheck Joliet.

what does joliet do?

It's a Microsoft extension to the ISO 9660 standard. It allows for deeper file depths, and longer names.