I used the Sound Blaster extigy at home and no, this is not a pcmcia deal.
This just goes through the usb port of your laptop. Then all you have to do is install the driver and you're done.
You can hook up spdif, optical in/out, it even does 5.1 and it's specifically designed for laptops, very easy and straightforward to setup.
This goes for about $149 in the US.
Let me know if you need more infos.

Claude