File Backup
I’m constantly harping on students to take personal responsibility for their data. When you’re working with central, networked, systems it’s just easy to get lazy:
“I’m not worried about my files - Someonesomewhere is backing them up.”
This never works out well. In any event, I’ve always encouraged students to use USB flash drives and just carry around their data so they’ll have access to it on any machine. They just need to remember to make their own backups at home : )
But in the last few years, several online storage services have popped up and are now reliable enough to recommend. Essentially these are services which store a limited amount of your data for free, and a significant amount if you are willing to fork out the cash. But for students - ever on a limited budget - the amount of free storage available is actually rather compelling. Thus if you can’t afford a flash drive, you can still have a free way to access your files. You must remember though that you have to have access to the internet to get to them - that’s another reason why the flash drive is still preferable.
Anyway, there are two primary models for these services: either you log into a web site and transfer files, or you download software to your machine and it attends to synching files for you. Services like Dropbox and Synchplicity take the route of installing software and handling the synch for you. I think both of these services work well. Of course, organization schemes vary, so you’d probably want to try these services out for yourself, but here is a mac-centric review of Dropbox which would probably be my choice. I’m sure you can find numerous reviews of Sychplicity as well. SugarSync is another similar tool if you’re really getting into comparisons. Comparing the features might lead you to the tool that works best for you and SugarSync’s web site has a convenient table...
But if you are working in a shared lab environment like my students, you’re not going to be able to install software. That’s what makes Box.net a nice alternative - with no software to install, it works via web browser. In fact, this is why I prefer it over the other services - I want to access my files anywhere, at any time. There’s a review of Box.net here, if you are looking for more information; and there is an iPhone app for added convenience.
All of this was just a long-winded way of saying: if you don’t want to buy a flash drive for my course, you can use a Box.net account instead. The free one give you 1 gig of storage. Just try it out before you need it - you don’t want to find out the night before the project is due that it’s not working.
...I guess that last paragraph alone could have made this a much shorter blog post. Oh well, studies indicate that you didn’t read it anyhow.
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I still prefer the flash drive. Heck 8GB drives are down to $16 and a lifetime replacement warranty (Trusty old MicroCenter…the only flash drives I use!) And that central/networked system is where I store one of my 3 backups I keep at all times. The other backups are located on my laptop and desktop. I use Microsoft’s SyncToy 2.0 to keep it all synced, and amazingly it works really well. To make it all work, though, I have my university network drive mapped to my computer using a VPN client.
I admit, this is most likely to much of a geeked-out solution to be feasible for most students. 
Dr. Fee,
You will be proud to know that i Know own 5 flash drives by which i now store all my hooplah. I guess it takes graduating to understand the importance of backing up your information- when you dont have a nice cooshy storage space on the WJ server. And now i am looking into buying a external harddrive for all my storage needs 
p.s. answer my e-mail
Sam,
I’ve been messing around with the pogoplug: http://www.pogoplug.com/
Which is cheap, flexible, and mounts as a desktop drive on my Mac, PC, and Linux based computers so I can run files (sorta) from the pogoplug (bandwidth permitting). They claim to be working on making it compatible with Time Machine, which would be beyond nice.
The only downside is that it won’t run on our university network so I have to run it on my glacial Midcontent cable connection at home.
Bill
I read it. I’m just saying.