To P or not to P?

Before you get your panties in a bunch, the "P" stands for portable.

So if you didn't already figured it out, all of my "computing world" is on a portable USB stick. If you read My Rig and Computing life in portable mode you know why I picked a portable USB thumb drive vs having everything on my computer's hard drive. But what about having my data and programs on the Internet?

Computer Hard-Drive vs. Online Data Storage & Internet Tools

Up until recent years when portable storage such as USB thumb drive and other portable drives became so affordable, most of us kept our data and programs on our computer's internal hard drive. It seem to be the most natural place to keep everything, besides, where else could you keep your "computer stuff" other than inside the computer it self?

Well that was then, today we do have other options:

1. Computer internal hard drive.
2. Online storage and applications.
3. Portable storage.

Lets briefly talk about the advantages, disadvantages, and the concerns that one may have with respect to each one of these.

Computer internal hard drive

The advantages of having all my stuff right on my computer internal hard drive are:

• Everything is right on my computer, so as long as I am on my computer I have everything I need.
• Things are (arguably) working faster when it's all on the computer it self.
• Even if I loose my Internet connection, I still can access all my data and run any of my programs.
• In theory, a computer is harder to loose or misplace in oppose to a portable drive.

And one of the main disadvantages in the context of this article is availability, you can only access your data and program when you have physical access to your computer (yes you can remotely connect to your PC but that's a different topic).  So if you are at a friends house and you want to show him/her your photos from last night's party, you can't because you left your laptop at home.

Online storage and applications

In opposed to having everything on your computer hard-drive, having all your data and application online has the following advantages:

• You have access to all your stuff from anywhere, even if you don't have your computer with you.
• Others can access your programs and data from anywhere if you allow them.
• Installed software on your PC is kept to a minimum.

As far as disadvantages, one of the biggest one in my opinion is that with this approche, you become dependent on a 3rd party to run your programs or access your data. Just imagine this scenario, you store all your documents on Google Docs, tomorrow they go out of business and shut the servers down...now what?

This scenario is not very likely to happen but it is definitely possible, and if you are heavily dependent on a website to hold all your documents what would you do when one day you type the URL, click Enter, and nothing happens.

So wait a minute, why the hell do I have a blog called eToolsOnline that is pretty much dedicated to online tools and application? well...I am fascinated by online tools and how far they got, think about it, an online tool like Pixlr Photo Editor that for the average person is as good as the very expensive Adobe Photoshop that must be installed on a computer hard-drive. Or another online tool like Gliffy Diagram tool, just a few years ago you could not even think about creating a somewhat decent diagram without using an installed program like Microsoft Visio, but now, all you need is an Internet browser and an Internet connection.

Portable Storage

This is where - in my opinion - you get to eat the cake and keep it too, almost anyone can easily set up a portable USB stick with anything and everything they need (see instructions at Computing life in portable mode and My Rig), you can take it anywhere, and you can use it on any computer. This method has most of the advantages of PC hard-drive installations and online tools, and almost none of the disadvantages. I do this for the last 3 or 4 years, everything I have is on a 16gb Super Talent Pico-C USB flash drive. I can go trough computers like a street hooker goes trough condoms without blinking an eye, all I need to do is unplug my USB stick from one computer, and plug it into another.

So to answer the question that the title of this post asks...P, definitely P.

What about you? do you use any online tools? are you walking around with a laptop or a USB stick? please add a comment and share your thoughts.

Related Posts:

• How to setup a portable applications USB drive
• Computing life in portable mode