Something strange has been going on with my ext3 filesystem. Today, I plugged in my usb stick and copied a couple files to it and the light went on the stick meaning that it worked. I used konqueror to look at the files on my usb stick and it didn't show up. I used the command line and the files showed. The other night I put a prey game dvd in the drive to install with wine, the command line showed that the dvd was empty but using konqueror showed all the files on the dvd. What gives? Things like that has happened on a few occasions where the files seemed to disappear. Is this a normal random experience? Thanks.

-bhert

Normally your device won't actually write the files until you umount that device. That could be the problem. Try umounting from the command line so you can actually see when it's done the writing process. Then remount it and everything should show up.
As for your DVD, are you sure you're looking at the right mount point? Use the mount command to see what's mounted and where.