A
standard iBook only comes equipped with one USB port. Your average
computer user will want to hook up many, many more than one peripheral.
The greatest thing about USB is that a single port can support
up to 100 devices. Therefore, you can just hook up a device known
as a USB hub, which works in somewhat the same way a power strip
does.
My
portable four port USB hub, by MacSense, only cost $30 and is
very tiny, about the size of two packs of gum. Also, since it
is bus-powered, it doesn't need to be plugged into an electrical
outlet. (However, this does mean that I can't plug too many peripherals
into the hub that runs off bus power, because there's not enough
power from one port to support more than that.) Now that I have
my iDock and wall-powered
4-port hub, by Belkin Components, I find the greatest amount of
use for my mini-hub when I'm on the road.
