Laser driver help... please..

Hello! I am new to building lasers, and have had an interest in this for a while. The only experience I have with electronics is assembling a pc based on how I took it apart initially (which I was surprised I even remembered how it went back together in the first place... I even had switched parts around as well to try to use the best ones I had on me to use), and that was a few years ago using old parts that were given to me by one of my dad's friends.

I have been trying to acumilate different resources of information on building a laser for the past couple of months now and finally am getting the parts to build one. I have been looking at different tutorials on building a driver for the laser and am trying to figure out what kind of resistor I need. As far as I am understanding, I need a 3 ohm resistor, but when I looked online to find one, there seem to be so many other specs and details... power rating, tolerance, termination style.... None of the tutorials say anything more than how to find what the ohm needed is.

What do I need to do?

In case it helps in figuring it out, here are links to the parts I have ordered so far... which are mostly just the diodes... >>

eBay

eBay

And are these even good diodes for a first laser? I want to build one I can burn things with, so...

If you want to build a laser, you're at the right place, Please read through the stickies and be more specific on what kind of help you need. Asking a broad spectrum questions would yeild you non-specific answers even pointing you in the wrong direction..
As far as i understand.. both your diodes are not powerful enough to burn! they are stated as 5mW.. At least 50mW or higher is required for burning.
As for now i would suggest you should read safety guidelines first and then move on to making a burning laser!
Driver: Are you talking about a linear voltage regulator, lm317 based driver a.k.a DDL circuit.. you will need 3Ohm resistor of atleast 0.5W , tolerance and other factors are not to be confused with, if you want to know about them just google it, otherwise leave it and stick to the tutorials..

you should read the thread "build your own laser", and the easiest laser to start off with which i think is the PHR-803T its very easy to build, it could also burn and smoke stuff its an awesome laser if you want to build a very powerful laser such as a 1W i recommend to practice with cheap lasers first