Dell Inspiron 1501 notebook - add firewire card advice

Dell has burned me twice on this, so sadly, I don't trust them anymore to give me advice.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 running VISTA. It has no firewire ports (although they told it did when I was looking for which laptop to buy). I want to do video capturing from a digital camcorder; they had recommended a hub, but after playing with THAT, IOGear says the hub doesn't do that.

I read that the best thing to do is install a Firewire card. My 1501 has an ExpressCard slot, so theoretically, installing a Firewire into it shouldn't be hard. Right? Can you recommend a good Firewire card for a decent price and easy install?

 

Generally, make sure you are getting a Firewire ExpressCard, not to be mistaken with PCMCIA (which is the older standard). Installing usually isn't difficult, most cases you can plug them in and then install the software, or install software then plug un. Just follow the instrcutions, if anything gets messed up its usually because the software doesn't get loaded when it's supposed to.

For instance printers, you must load the software first before ever plugging them in, otherwise you'll never print.

 

Don't know how good or bad it is
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839328006

 

I did a search at NewEgg and found about 6 or 8 different cards that would work. None of them had a single 5 star (or 5 egg) review, and most had really bad reviews for both Vista and XP. I found this one with no reviews:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839104016
It almost looks like the firewire technology and express slot technology just don't mesh well. I've used some regular old PCMCIA firewire cards and they worked fine. But this is another issue with the express slot. Personally, I can't remember ever seeing any laptops with built-in firewire. I'll look around for a USB>Firewire adapter if such a thing even exists....

 

Here's a USB to firewire adapter but it is expensive @ $119!
http://www.usbfirewire.com/Parts/rr-527950.html