Simply Accounting and thumb drives

[Boozy]

I don't know if anyone will be able help me, but you guys have been pretty on the ball so far, so here goes:

I am installing Simply Accounting on my dad's computer and on my own. I do his books mostly at his office, but sometimes I work from home. I'd like to be able to easily transfer the work I've done in Simply from my home computer to his office and vice versa.

Questions:
Is a thumb drive the best bet?
Is this easy for someone like me to figure out? I have intermediate computer skills at best.
Any recommendations on what kind of thumb drive to buy? I've never used one before.
If I have my data on two computers, is it still advisable to burn data onto a disc for backup?

[Acolyte]

Thumb drives were what I recommended for Simply users, and any random 512 will be more then enough to work (IIRC, the backups are only a few megs).

The backup is really easy. You just hit the 'backup' button and choose a location.

I wouldn't bother with keeping a disk backup, because they'll fail sooner then a thumb drive. As long as you keep doing regular backups to somewhere, you're fine.

[rvdammit]

Look for them as USB Flash Drives, thumb drive is a trademark name.

[Seshat]

If I have my data on two computers, is it still advisable to burn data onto a disc for backup?

All hard drives WILL fail. There is a non-trivial chance that both drives will fail at the same time. You have to be unlucky, but everyone's unlucky some day.

The USB drive will act as a backup as well, so that's a bonus. If the data is important and will be difficult to recover from the source documents (receipts, bank statements, etc), burn a CD or DVD month or so (CDs are cheap, after all), and don't shred or discard the source documents until you have the burned backup.


And yeah, the USB flash drive will be easy.

[JustADude]

Flash-drives are totally easy on a typical XP or Vista machine. Just pop it in and most read as a Generic Storage Device automatically.

For brands I'd recommend something like Memorex. They're never the first on the scene with a new technology, but they're always a solid product when they do get around to the market... probably because they took the time to do their research.

[Dreamstalker]

Look for them as USB Flash Drives, thumb drive is a trademark name.

It is? I never knew that...

I have a 1GB Corsair flashdrive that they say is indestructible...waterproof, rubberized and all that. Things are going to be fun around here when that finally does decide to die...