The increased use of USB and FireWire connectivity in Windows has caused users a teensy-weensy problem: plenty of peripherals, but no place to plug them in. Most PCs ship with two USB ports and zero FireWire connections.
Fortunately, there is a neat little solution: Belkin Components
makes a handy FireWire/USB ComboCard for PC, with a street price
of about $110. It takes up one PCI slot, and adds three FireWire
and two USB ports. Support for both is built into Windows XP, so
the card may be something to consider as part of any plan to
upgrade your PC to the new OS.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/423/tr.cgi?al4
Of course, you could just add a FireWire card, a card with more USB ports, or both. But the combo card takes up a single slot and, just as important, it supports about as many external peripherals as most PCs can handle comfortably. (Yeah, sure, USB theoretically can accommodate 127 devices, but even if your system didn't blow up from driver conflict, physically placing that many devices would be a bit much.) With the ComboCard in place you can support your garden variety peripherals such as printers, scanners, and keyboards with USB while you have FireWire for video and other high bandwidth uses.
You can reach Al Gordon at:
mailto:al@TheNakedPC.com
