Most PCs come with at least one USB port. USB ports are the most popular type of port, and allow for high-speed communication (up to 12Mbps) between external devices and your computer. Printers, scanners, digital cameras and many other peripherals use this port. USB compatible devices may be connected to your PC through the USB port on the back of the computer or through a USB hub.

An upgrade of USB 1.1, USB 2.0 boasts a 480Mbps data transfer rate, which is about 40 times faster than its predecessor. USB 2.0, also called High-Speed USB, is compatible with CD and DVD drives. USB 2.0 features total backward compatibility with the older interface. The 2.0 interface requires a PCI adapter card for PCs, and a PCMIA card for notebook computers because of the massive data transfer.

It goes by several different names; Sony, for example, calls it I-Link and Apple calls it FireWire® . These ports are extremely fast and are a great low-cost solution. IEEE1394 ports and cables are designed to transmit images and video in a purely digital format between your system and other devices, such as a digital camcorders and cameras. This interface runs slightly slower than USB 2.0 at 400Mbps, but is essential for anyone interested in digital imaging applications.

Both of the USB interfaces and IEEE1394 allow for simple connection of plug-and-play devices to your PC without having to shut down your PC. Once these plug-and-play peripherals are connected to your PC through USB or FireWire® , the computer will automatically recognize the device and install the appropriate drivers.

These are necessary for hooking up your Ethernet network and sharing your high-speed Internet connection, files, printers and more. Ethernet cables look like telephone cables, except that the connectors are wider on the end. Ethernet cables comes in several grades of quality, which support varying connection speeds and frequencies. Category 5, or Cat5 as it's often called, is a good general purpose Ethernet cable, but can only transfer data at 10/100Mbps. Cat5e succeeded in securing faster transfer rates than Cat5 and is able to transmit 100Mbps at a bandwidth of 100MHz. An even faster standard, FastCat5e, can transfer 100Mbps, and does so at a bandwidth of 350MHz. The higher bandwidth allows for fewer errors, which makes the cable work faster than the standard Cat5e. Cat6e is the fastest standard, and was created to transmit a full gigabit of data per second. Cat6e transmits at 250Mhz to reach that speed.