Originally posted by: erwos
Originally posted by: TheStu
Consumer IR is Consumer InfraRed, and is, IMO completely useless these days.
What? Methinks you're getting IrDA and consumer IR confused. IrDA is for data transfer over infrared - which isn't very handy in this day and age of Bluetooth. Consumer IR is for using a remote control with your computer, which is quite useful for media center applications.
ExpressCard 34 and 54 are notebook expansion card slots, 34 being narrower than 54. They replace the PCMCIA (Personal Computer M-something Component Interconnect Association) connector that was previously used on laptops.
ExpressCard is PCI Express based, whereas PCMCIA is PCI-based. There are fewer peripherals out for ExpressCard, but you can generally get what you need these days.
The "34" and "54" refer to the width of the slot. You want 54 if possible - it has better compatibility.