Since the arrival of USB 2.0, FireWire, as a transfer medium, has lost some of its luster. The introduction of FireWire 800 helped its cause a bit, but only marginally. However, most of us have computers with FireWire ports in them, and we have something else: with the popularity of USB, we often have a dearth of USB ports to plug things into. So wouldn't it be handy to put that old FireWire port to good use with something like the Delkin FireWire CompactFlash Reader ($89.99).



The reader works with both flavors of FireWire-400 and 800-and supports the higher speeds available on UDMA-enabled CompactFlash cards. According to Delkin, the device, with the included adapter, supports speeds up to 45 megabytes per second (High-speed USB tops out at 48 MB/s). The unit is a "plug-and-play" device, the company says, and does not require any drivers to work with Windows versions prior to Vista or Mac OS 9 and X.