My computer has SIX USB ports - all full. The horizontal ones in front are easy to access because I just have to make sure the little USB emblem on the plug is on top - I have a devil of a time with the vertical jacks in the rear of the cumputer, so I plug the permanent stuff in there - to reduce the frequency of my frustration. Yeah, I suppose it would be nice if it were a little more clear how to orient the plug, but that part of it ain't horrible.

Now, what REALLY bugs me is the wide variety of miniature plugs, for cell phones and MP3 players and cameras and bluetooth and whatnot. I think I have five different sizes of miniature plugs, and they drive me crazy. The standardization of the USB cable was a wonderful idea - I wonder how they lost control on the miniature plugs.

I am very happy with the speed of USB 2.0, except that it's a little slow for hard drives and large flash drives and for transfer of data between computers. Years ago, I bought a parallel cable to transfer data to a new computer, and that was ridiculously slow. USB is a huge improvement over that. I used a portable USB hard drive to transfer data to this computer when moved to Vista two years ago.

I'll be glad when USB 3.0 comes into general use in a year or two. It's supposed to be much faster, and backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 and 1.0.

-Joe-