Yes, APE or FLAC are excellent, but takes up more disk space. I like mp3 VBR enconding target quality extreme.
But you do know that you are creating a lossy "damaged" copy of the original and will need to re-rip everything again in the future if some new format suddenly becomes cool. You can't convert MP3 to anything that's listenable.
In 2012 - with disk space is as cheap as it will ever be - and for best use of your ripping time - any rip project should only consider a lossless archive quality file as an end result. My rule - rip it once and rip it right. For me - FLAC is the only true option for storage, massively good metadata support and true lossless trans-coding to future formats if required.
Anything else is just setting you up for a repeated rip session, more wasted time and your run the risk of damage having to continually mess around with your original source discs over and over again.
VP