cd writers

My advice was based on you owning a PC, by the way (since you said pc card) but looking upthread it seems you have a Mac. The combo card I mentioned says it can be put into Macs but won't give USB 2.0 performance unless you have OS X 10.1. It's a D-Link DFB-A5 PCI card.

I have decided to go for the ethernet. Assuming I fix my other computer woes, which of these similarly priced Lacie drives should I get?

This one:

http://www.jandr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=1&Product_Id=3953876

Or this one: (which is the one they sell at the Apple store)

http://www.jandr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=1&Product_Id=3674954

option one, its cheaper.

I got the Lacie firewire Porsche CD.RW plus the Unibrain firewire notebook card at Tekserve today, with design help from Carey. I burned my first CD with no problem at all, so I recommend the above.