Hi,
with some patience you'll be able to find a number of useful tips here, because the subject is sharing more and more interest.
As far as I can tell, there are two major choices: WAV (uncompressed, same bit rate as CD - 16/44.1 -. writable on a CD-R and playable by almost any piece of equipment, typical of the Windows platform and seen by virtually any digital player or streamer; FLAC, a compressed but lossless format which is also much used, in fact almost all Hi-res files - such as those in 24/96 - are available in FLAC for download. FLAC, though, is not recognized by Windows Media Player unless you add a specific piece of software, and I believe not by iTunes either, while media players like Foobar2000 and VLC, free, play almost any format in existence.
Ripper software is much discussed, but in spite of a common belief, rooted in times when PCUs were slower, a software like EAC (Exact Audio Copy, free) does not rip files significantly better than Windows Media Player or iTunes, provided the CD is in normal conditions. All the three mentioned software can provide bit-perfect storage of CDs in normal conditions.
I don't know Sony gear, but the most common format for portable players - excluding Apple ones, which have a proprietary format called AIFF - is probably MP3, which can be used in a variety of bi rates, from very poor to quite acceptable. It's possible that Sony favors a proprietary format in their own software, but in general I believe that MP3 is almost universally accepted.
Many will be able to give you much more accurate informations, but this is grossly where to begin with.
I hope I have been accurate enough,
Best wishes
Massimo