USB 3 Ethernet Adapter

A USB 2.0 Ethernet adapter is a pitiful thing, an ugly workaround only really useful when you find yourself in a Wi-Fi-free hotel room with only your MacBook Air for company.

A USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter, on the other hand, is every bit as good as having a real 10/1000 network connector hole in the side of your machine.

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Thunderbolt Docking Hub Adds USB 3.0 To MacBooks

Cheap and fairly cheerful: The Matrox DS1 Thunderbolt dock.

Love the idea of a Thunderbolt docking station but hate the idea of paying $1,000 for an Apple Thunderbolt-equipped display? Then why not save yourself $750 and opt for the Matrox DS1?

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New Hard Drive Enclosure Has Almost Every Advanced Input Known to Man. Almost

Akitio’s pretty new alloy enclosure has a back full of inputs: eSATA, USB 3.0 and two FireWire 800 ports. There’s no way to jack in a Thunderbolt connection, though.

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LaCie Will Bring USB 3.0 To Your Mac Even If Apple Won’t

Apple’s not ready to throw their hat into the USB 3.0 ring just yet. As Steve Jobs made abundantly clear in an email last week, Cupertino’s doesn’t see USB 3.0 taking off, at least until Intel starts officially supporting it… and evidence suggests that Apple might avoid USB 3.0 entirely in favor of Light Peak.

But what if you want USB 3.0 on your Mac now? Well, Apple’s not serving up official drivers yet, but LaCie’s stepping up to fill the void: they’ve just announced USB 3.0 drivers for their line of solutions.

To get USB 3.0 on your Mac, first you’ll need to buy one of LaCie’s cards: either a $49.99 USB 3.0 PCI Express Card or the $59.99 USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34, both of which will bring a couple of USB 3.0 (and backwards compatible USB 2.0) ports to your Mac Pro or MacBook. Then install the free driver and you’re ready to pick yourself up one of those blindingly flash USB 3.0 external drives that are all the rage right now.

Not a bad solution for Mac Pros, but ExpressCards can be fairly irritating to have hanging out of a MacBook, and obviously this won’t help you if you’ve got a MacBook Air, Mac mini or iMac. Still, if you’re committed to being on the cutting edge, LaCie’s happy to take your cash and make it happen.