How to stay organized and synced without downloading to work computer?

• I work an overnight shift and when I don’t have actual work sitting in front of me I’m able to work on my schoolwork and research for a PhD. I’m looking for the easiest way to manage the electronic articles I find (and download) as well as manage the Word documents I’m typing for notes and papers (and the dissertation. Let’s not forget the all-important Dissertation!). The setup: I have internet access on work computers, but no WiFi. The usual sites are blocked (YouTube, Facebook, entertainment, etc) but the blocks don’t interfere with my schoolwork so that’s not an issue. I assume everything is monitored but I’m not researching anything that’s NSFW, so I’m not concerned with that at this time (and my supervisor knows what I do and is supportive as long as the work gets done). I do NOT have my own login to the computer (Windows based). We don’t log in and out…it’s just always on. I can’t remote in to the Windows computer either. So far, jump drives and such are OK…the patient files we work with aren’t in Word anyways. I own an iPad 3 with 3G access to the internet. However, I’d like to use the work internet as much as I can in order to save data on the plan. I do use it if I need to get to a site that’s blocked. I have a jump drive, a Dropbox account, a Mendeley account (which is what I’d love to use for the PDFs of articles I download), a Google account or two (one tied to my android phone), and a Yahoo email account. All are accessible from my iPad. I also have a netbook I use at home but I don’t really want to tote it back and forth to work. As of right now I do not have Dropbox or Mendeley downloaded to the work computer like you would at home. Right now if I want to save an article I save it to the desktop on the work computer, then turn around and either upload it to Dropbox using their website or move it to my jump drive, then delete it from the desktop. If I get distracted in the middle of any of that I lose track of what I’ve saved and what I haven’t (and where it is). I don’t want my coworkers having access to my files when I’m not here. While I do keep files in my Dropbox I don’t want others looking at, I don’t keep super secure info like bank statements, etc. However, I don’t trust all of my coworkers to not screw around with or delete my files just to piss me off or “as a joke” (which will piss me off). So I want a safe, secure way to manage everything. My questions: 1. Is there a good, password protected way to have the Dropbox or Mendeley app downloaded to the work computer where coworkers cannot access it, delete it, or otherwise mess with my stuff? Relatedly, is there a way to password protect a folder I make on the C: drive somehow? 2. Can I run any of those things off of a jump drive so that Dropbox will automatically update when I save something to it? My idea is to be able to save something to Dropbox or Mendeley at work then pull it up on my iPad later in the day to read it without having to sync everything with the netbook. 3. I’d really love to be able to have my own web browser with my own bookmarks saved that I can log in and out of…similar to Chrome but I’m deathly afraid I’ll forget to log out of Chrome just once and coworkers will have access to all sorts of things I don’t want them to have. Any way to do that with the jumpdrive? 4. Any other ideas you have for keeping everything organized and synced up with relative ease?

• Answer:

  Seconding Google Drive. You don't even have to remember to "control-S"....it's saving for you, as you go.