Best way to put USB 2.0 in laptop?
 

My laptop is equipped with USB 1.1, which is very slow for reading from CD-ROM drive. It also has a PC card slot (type I, II, and III compatible), a 25-pin parallel port, a 9-pin serial port, and a PS/2 port. I use these words without really knowing what they mean.

1. If I get an adapter for any of these, to convert to USB 2.0, will there be a huge performance improvement over the USB 1.1's speed?
2. Is it normal for a PCMCIA USB device to protrude half an inch from the laptop's case?

The PCMCIA card slot is the only one amenable to adding a high speed device. And, yes, something has to protrude in order to have a way to plug the USB device into it.