Formatting a boot USB drive
http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php

HP USB Key Utility

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=US&swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839

How to boot from a flash drive

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

Trinity Rescue Kit

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Ultimate BootCD – now comes with a USB setup utility

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

“virtual floppy driver”

http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html

Raw Write utility

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

There is a USB 2.0 external video adaptor from Tritton

http://www.trittontechnologies.com/products/TRIUV100.htm

Now of course the bandwidth of USB 2.0 is a problem, and these adaptors are NOT suitable for gaming. They are a solution for business use of a laptop where you have to have a second screen.

As far as accelerating your laptop graphics goes — unfortunately its shopping time for a new laptop. Laptops don’t have normal graphic card slots – 99.9 % of laptops have their graphics soldered onto the motherboard, and the very few machines that use Mini-PCIe cards for graphics, I have seen no aftermarket Mini-PCI-e cards available at all.

you have a new machine that has an ExpressCard/34 slot available. Asus has an external video card solution the XG Station http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=2&l2=162

A switch acts as a hub (a splitter), but it also can work more efficiently by isolating traffic between two ports from the other ports.
However what you need is a router, not a switch. Your broadband modem gives you one IP address — this cannot be used by multiple machines. A switch does nothing about the IP addresses.

However a router will distribute your one cable internet connection to 4 or 8 machines connected by Ethernet and it will issue a unique IP address to each machine.

(most routers have a 4 port switch built in, and some have wireless WiFi capability as well. If you need more than 4 ports, you can hook a switch up to one of the router’s ports.)

Linksys, D-Link and Netgear are three popular brands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Router

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