USB

What's USB? USB, an acronym for Universal Serial Bus, is a method for connecting such peripheral devices as mice, keyboards, modems, game controllers (like joysticks), digital cameras, scanners, hard drives, and removable media drives to your computer (most notably the iMac). It is sort of a replacement for the old ADB ports for Apple and now also often appearing on the newest PCs (though, to my knowledge, Carleton has not ordered any with this USB option yet).

Here are some important stuff to be aware of when using USB:

USB does not have any sort of "ID" with them.
USB is "hot swappable", meaning that you can add and remove things to the chain without locking up the computer. Activating the appropriate drivers for adding things, however, is probably another story.
OS 8.5 and higher install USB extensions and drivers automatically. I believe the Windows98 does also. Running an older version of either OS with USB is pretty risky.
USB connections allow data to flow both ways between the PC and peripheral. This means people can use their PC to control peripherals in new ways. More info about what types of things have been tried on campus would be nice (examples on the web include tuning attached stereo speakers or managing phone stuff).
Technically, you can connect up to 127 individual USB peripherals to one USB port.
USB is waay to slow to use for hard drive connections (see the comparison of different transfer protocol's speeds).
The maximum cord length for USB is about 4 meters.
USB was not designed to be a LAN (in case anyone asks).

Here's some links for those who need 'em:

USB.org - The official page?
- USB.org's comparison of the speeds of various transfer types (eg comparing SCSI speed to USB).
AllUSB - Listing of the USB products out there.
Intel on USB - Intels help site for USB.