Newbie - laptop recording - USB or Firewire + PCMCIA card

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Howdy - I would like to get into audio/MIDI work using my laptop.
In particular I would like to run looper like Ambiloop and be able
to record to it from guitar synth and control it from external MIDI
device FCB1010.
Also run some simple recording mixing software and MIDI sequencer
(eg Power Tracks by PGMusic). I have PCMCIA Audigy sound card that
supports SoundFont to render MIDI.
I was thinking about either getting Behringer BCA2000 or perhaps
spending a little more and get Firewire PCMCIA card and then perhaps
m-Audio 410? I plan to record a only a single stereo signal at a time
at this point. I would appreciate any comments on either setup?

Regards,

JT

PS. laptop in question is Thinkpad 1.8GHz with 512RAM and Win XP