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I ordered cables from here. I temporarily dropped $250 for four cables at BB to get my stuff running, ordered the equivalent at that site for $26 shipped then returned the BB stuff 3 days later when it arrived. yay! Never heard of bluejeanscable, but their prices seem pretty comparable... except on their dual-link dvi cables, ouch

for less than $10, actually, at http://monoprice.com/.

For the lazy: cheap cables

Just to let you know, these guys http://www.monoprice.com/ have awesome deals and great quality cables. I'm not an employee, just a fan. I started with a 6' Monster HDMI cable that was outrageously expensive ($120 USD) and monoprice had one for $15. The $15 cable was identical. Zero problems with it for four months. I also bought the 5-line composite cable (3 yb cables and a pair of analog audio rcas all in the same ribbon) and it has been perfect as well.

  HIGHLY recommended.

slight correction : the cable you link to is gold-plated ;). and so is the cheap jack/RCA cable between my PC and my amp. A lot of cheap connectors are gold plated, so it's some more reason not to be ripped off buying a $50 or $100 cable.
As for most people : I tend to think that most people don't own a DVI cable ^

and, if you put that HTPC right under the TV, why not this $5 cable. it would be quite un-natural to aim for that PC with the infrared remote if it's 7 meter away from the TV, anyway.

Not sure about $10, but here's one for under $20 from MonoPrice. (Hopefully that link is stable...) It's not a "gold plated" one or anything, but I've used their cheap grade stuff in the past and it generally does its job. I'm not sure why most people would need a 25' cable, though. For most people, a $4.95 adaptor and their existing DVI cable ought to do the trick.

Not sure about $10, but here's one for under $20 from MonoPrice. (Hopefully that link is stable...) It's not a "gold plated" one or anything, but I've used their cheap grade stuff in the past and it generally does its job. I'm not sure why most people would need a 25' cable, though. For most people, a $4.95 adaptor and their existing DVI cable ought to do the trick.

No you wont. Just buy a switchbox.

Well, here are three posibilities. None are perfect, but I'm guessing they are workable:

1. Desktop usage:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?keywo rd=2105
And a 2 or 4 port PATA raid card,
or
http://www.topmicrousa.com/st-123cf.html
and a SATA capable motherboard or SATA raid card.

The second has the advantage of being easily hotswappable.

Disadvantage: Not as cheap as you might like. Probably $50-$100 investment required.

2. Notebook usage:
http://americanesuperstore.stores.yahoo.net/cfad-0 03.html
Get two. Assumes your notebook has 2 PCMCIA slots, and you don't mind wasting them both.

Advantage? Internal
Disadvantage? No open PCMCIA slots. Most modern notebooks (unlike my Inspiron 8200) only have 1. Notebook must support booting from PCMCIA IDE

3. Notebook usage:
http://www.lexar.com/readers/pro_reader.html
Lexar daisy chainnable USB/Fireware CF reader.

Advantage? Does exactly what you want.
Disadvantage? Probably pricey. (~$80) External. Notebook must support booting from USB/Firewire.

Other items of note:
http://www.sprysoft.com/card-reader-internal/p_288 29.html

This allows you to plug in a combination of flash devices. SD, CF, whatever else. You could probably get up to 10 or so GB. Requires a 5.25" bay.

http://www.lexar.com/ufc/index.html

If you are really handy with wiring inside your notebook, you could probably stack these tiny Lexar USB Flashcards. They are slightly larger than a USB port; pretty damn small, in other words.

I guess I misunderstood you the first time (in terms of price/convenience), but I know the tech is out there. A couple guys with some basic soldering capabilities could probably through your dream, 2.5" IDE/Flash adapter together in a matter of days, with either using the IDE connection, or slapping together something via internal USB. Either way, what you are asking for is probably only not avaliable because of lack of market demand.

Monoprice.com: $6.50
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id =102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024003&p_id=2526&seq=1&for mat=2&style=

Ok, RAID5 is c00l, but I rather work simple. For important data, I store it to two different disks (on different computers) and offline. For really important data, fourth, fifth location is that far away to protect from about else that direct hit by a large asteroid.

I have EPIA PD10000 motherboard on my server (Debian, of course). Currently, there are 3 PATA disks (one old 60G from desktop and two quite new 250G) thus I have internal capacity to add more disks on PATA channel. Disks are configured to spin down after a period of inactivity. The PCI slot is reserved by DVB card, so I cannot add more [SP]ATA disk.

However, there are many USB2.0 connectors and I'm thinking adding arhcive disks with USB. Those disks would be powered on-demand (using array of relays controlled by parallel port), thus in theory I could have tens of disks. USB2 transfer speed is sufficient for that kind of usage.

I found an inexpensive USB to ATA adapter, but it is unclear how it works if the disk is powered down. Does anyone have experience on that?

Of course, you must organise your data so that you will know which parts must be replicated and what data you allow to lose.

Recently when we took the huge tv plunge we needed to cable everything up. I was shocked to see how much people were asking for cables (DVI, HDMI, optical, etc). We ended up getting about $250 worth of them from the big box just to get us up and running then I turned around and ordered replacements from monoprice.com and returned the monster stuff. I think it ended up being about $25 for all of it even with shipping. Talk about markup, jeez BTW: I don't have anything to do with monoprice, they just seem like a pretty good source for that kind of stuff.

And dual link DVI works with inexpensive adapters for component video.

And dual link DVI works with inexpensive adapters for component video.