I have a PCMCIA network card that seems to work wonders at picking up wireless signals (Netgear 511U Dual Band) but it forces me to leave my laptop in a certain location all the time.

Is there any such device that I could plug the PCMCIA card (in this case the Netgear 511U card) into and have it output to a standard USB cable that I could plug into any computer?

Every google search seems to turn up the reverse of what I want (I see Cardbus for PCMCIA cards that have USB ports ).

I managed to find this, which seems to be exactly what you are looking for, except it sounds like it might be designed to only work with a particular PCMCIA card (something called an ABS - Automated Backup Solution), so no guarantees that it would work with your wireless card.

I assume your card is a WG511U?

There is a USB version of this called the WG111U. You may just want to get one of those instead - link. Then you could just use a USB extension cable to place it where you want.