Is it a laptop or a desktop? Laptops will use a PCMIA card, while desktops use PCI cards that require opening the computer. Still, both are easy. Also, you can get cards that have both Firewire and USB 2.0 ports.

PCMIA firewire cards for laptops do not provide power unless you use and external power supply.

BTW, the old USB 1 ports also work. Although the transfer rate is much slower than the firewire or USB 2.0, it is still close to the maximum disc speed of the IPOD. Thus, the newer ports are not as much faster as the number tend to indicate. The maximum speed that the IPOD drive can write to the disc is ~8M/sec, so the 400M/sec rate of firewire is largely wasted when copying songs to the IPOD. USB 1 ports are about the same speed as the IPOD hard drive.