throwing in my 2 cents...

1) USB is more widespread than firewire, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a laptop without USB. firewire's typically used for DV cameras or other high-data-quantity applications

2) digital media reader built into the laptopi s convenient if you have a digicam or mp3 player or something that uses flash media. if you only use stuff like that infrequently, you can always use an external reader, which are cheap and quiet compact these days

3) you want at least 2 USB ports, if you're getting a new laptop they'll almost definitely be USB 2.0. I would recommend going all USB if possible - parallel ports are more and more rare these days, and bulky. you're post implied you had a parallel port printer, I couldn't quite tell, but they do make parallel port to USB adapters

4) shared video memory is fine for basic uses - web surfing, office apps, etc. I wouldn't recommend it (at all) for gaming. keep in mind if it is shared, it's taking away from main sysetm memory, so I'd want at least 512mb total ram to keep things running smoothly (assuming you're running windows xp)

5) for $1k, you can definitely get a laptop with integrated wifi, and I've definitely seen laptops at that price point with 802.11g. even still, unless you need fast network access, 10/100 would be fine for most net surfing

hope this helps