The thumb drive may be fine IF you have no confidential data.  Otherwise,
you are a liability waiting to happen.  You should keep that in mind.  Also,
the thumb drive WILL fail.  So it should NEVER be the primary location of
anything.

-----Original Message-----
From: Political Methodology Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Jim Battista
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 11:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [POLMETH] data storage, file maintenance, and multiple
computers

Maybe I'm nuts, but I get by just fine with a thumbdrive.

I may be a bit unusual in that my main machine is the home
desktop box, not the underpowered office machine that spends
most of its time and energy checking itself for viruses.  About
the only serious thing I try to get done with the office machine
is editing .tex files.

Anyway, this seems like a no-brainer in the age of cheap 1G+ USB
drives.  It keeps everything I'm working on backed-up and synced
at the same time.

Stuff that I'm done with or not working on at the moment I
transfer around on cd-rs on an irregular basis.

Working stuff gets chucked onto the thumbdrive and synced with
SyncToy from the home desktop.

If I'm using the laptop at home, I work with files on the
desktop over wireless.  If I'm using it at a conference or
otherwise elsewhere, I either work directly on the thumbdrive or
copy the thumdrive to the laptop's hd and then copy it back when
I get home.

If I'm working on the office machine, I just work directly on
the thumbdrive and drag from the thumbdrive to the machine when
I can be bothered to.  SyncToy barfs on that machine anyway.

-- 
James S. Coleman Battista
Dept. of Political Science, Univ. of North Texas
[log in to unmask] (940)565-4960