Online storage is becoming more and more popular as high speed internet and cheap, high capacity storage infiltrates mainstream America. There are several ways to keep your favorite files online. If you want complete customization and flexibility you can build your own network area storage (NAS) unit. This is more cost and effort than most people want to exert. Instead, many people are opting for online services. An important use of online storage is for offsite backup. I use Mozy to back up some of my documents automatically. If you want to pay $5/month you can backup your entire computer and should the worst case scenario happen, you will still have all of your files. Mozy will give you 2GB free space (if you sign up with my link we will both get an additional 256MB) to try their service. Carbonite is a similar service. Another reason for online storage is to transfer your files from computer to computer. In the good old days we all used to carry around floppy disks. Then we upgraded to CDs and emailing ourselves that presentation we had to give in class next hour. Now USB drives and online storage are common place. Dropbox is a popular service for this. Online services for uploading files have been around for quite a while now, usually offering 500MB - 2GB free storage. Microsoft has recently upgraded its skydrive service to offer 25GB space for FREE. There are a couple of things to keep in mind, however. For one, the drag and drop bulk uploader only works with internet explorer. You can add file from any browser, you just have to be prepared to select individual files. The other thing that limits Skydrive uses is its 50MB/file limit. This prevents you from backing up many video and other large files. If you want to share files, Skydrive will let you upload to a public folder and provide a url to share with your friends. I will probably upload all of our wedding pictures to skydrive to keep on copy (along with other backups) online. If you have an existing hotmail or live.com account you already have a skydrive account. If not, the 25GB may tempt you to signing up for microsoft's service. Don't forget, you can create different accounts at 25GB apiece if you really need a lot of storage.
USB drives (thumb drives, usb keys, jump drives, whatever you call them) have dropped in price dramatically. I think I paid around $80 for a 1GB drive 5 years ago and now you can get a 2GB or even 4GB drive for under $10. With these drives so cheap (even given out by companies at trade shows) are you taking advantage of all that can be done with this portable storage medium? Below I've listed a few things that you can do with your drive besides carry your documents and spreadsheets around.
Portable Apps
http://portableapps.com
http://www.pendriveapps.com/
Portable apps are great for people who use multiple computers and have specific programs they want with them at all times. They are also great for anyone who does any troubleshooting/it work. The programs reside and run completely on the usb drive requiring no installation on the host computer. See the website for more info. This concept works with OS X, but is much more common with Windows programs.
Manage Passwords
http://cnettv.cnet.com/make-most-your-usb-drive-manage-passwords-your/9742-1_53-19556.html
This video is a couple years old, so there may be more up to date programs, but the concept remains the same.
Back up critical files
http://cnettv.cnet.com/make-most-your-usb-drive-back-up-your/9742-1_53-19558.html
Same applies to this video.
Add extra memory to your PC
http://cnettv.cnet.com/use-flash-drive-memory-windows-xp/9742-1_53-50004761.html
This could be a way for you to use one of those extra drives you have lying around to get a little more performance out of that XP machine.
These are probably just a few of the things that can be done with these readily available, cheap drives. As always, if you have more suggestions, please let me know.