I'm in the position of needing to purchase a new laptop that must meet the following minimum specs: (1) 512 MB RAM; (2) 56K v 90K modem; (3) 802.11 b/g compliant wireless card; (4) 10/100/1000 Etherneet PC Card; (6) 40+ GB HD; (7) PC card slot; (8) 1 GB MHz processor speed.

While I'm finding that looking for a new laptop is a very educational experience, I'm also a little overwhelmed by the huge number variety of choices available. Would you all help out by guiding me with answers/advice about the following:

1) How important is it to choose a system with IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface? What exactly is it and how does it work?

2) Is it absolutely necessary to have a digital media reader? 4-in-1 or 6-in-1? What do laptops w/o readers use?

3) What would be the smallest number of 2.0 USB ports
reasonable? Since I know that I will need at least one for (a) parallel port toUSB printer connection) and another for occasional use with (b) external 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive, should I assume that a system with a total of 3 ports would be adequate?

4) I note that on some laptops video memory is shared DDR (128 MB or 64 MB). Is this good?

5) I also see that the network card in most systems in my price range (+/- $1K) is integrated 10/100. Should I be able to get along with this? It appears that systems with 10/100/1000 are in laptops with faster processors and llarger hard drives; this kicks prices out of my price range.

Any info, advice, and recommendations would be greatly appreciated. TIA