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["James K. Banks" <foreclosers AT gmail.com>]

I have a Toshiba Portege 7020CT laptop (specs available here, such as they are: http://www.toshiba-europe.com/computers/products/notebooks/portege7020/product.shtm).  I have BL 3.5 on it, but I haven't gotten it to do everything I want it to.  The main goal I have for it is to take it into the local cafe and be able to write up drafts of blog posts or word processing type things without going home, and also send and receive email.

Some extra things that might be nice: reading Wikipedia, checking my online banking (requires some level of _javascript_, don't know how much), telnetting into freeshell.org, playing MP3s, writing C programs, flash drive support, using abiword (or some other WYSIWYG editor?) for drafting rather than troff/HTML, using sylpheed (or another graphical mail client?) rather than mutt for email.

Questions:

I have to use PCMCIA cards for ethernet or wifi.  What are good cards for that?  I've already got an Ethernet card (DYNEX DX-E202) coming in the mail, not sure if it'll work, might be too new.

The USB port doesn't seem to work under the default 2.2.16 kernel.  I read that 2.4 kernels have better USB support.  So I looked at Sindi's 2.4 kernels, but I don't know which one to pick.  I assume I should go with one of the bigger ones, but which one?  (Also, which one does best with Wifi cards?)

I haven't gotten X to work, which obviously is required for a lot of my "nice things" list.  I might have more specific questions about it later.  But if I could get the SVGALib links2 to work, that would get me Wikipedia (and maybe, possibly, online banking).  Also might help reviewing HTML I write.  The package seems to have been made for an earlier version of BL.  Do I have to "downgrade" to that, or can I get it work in BL 3.5, if so, how?   

Thanks.