When you upload something on an USB you can forget about it in a hour or so because it has small dimensions. Just burn a dvd and put all data there because all discs offer higher capacities. It is easy to install, you need just a library to be present on laptop.
USB are still good, but if you have a special place to leep them.
Most of us use the same popular programs all the time. But each year new solutions appear from new or old competitors. To have success, these applications has new features and often (not always) are much better. For example, for Crosloop here is a list, for Digikam here and for BgInfo here. Is important to know that 99% of your tools has different other solutions on the market and many of them are free.
many people does not know, but there are many programs like keyloggers that are able to record all keystrokes and to send it to an email address. That’s why is highly important to pay attention who use your computer and to protect the access to the Windows OS with a strong administrator password. The idea is that no one can ensure 100% protection, but you must use the best practices. For internet connections use a proxy service to maintain the anonymity.
Recently some friends were affected by a computer virus that has encrypted all the data from hard drive, so they couldn’t read their emails and documents. A great solution is to use backup to an external source such as cloud or hard drive. No matter which email clients you use it is recommended to make backups weekly or monthly. Maybe daily is too often.
And always save a copy of backup on another drive because everything can fail.
When is about work, i prefer (always) the laptop. This is because has a larger screen and i am more comfortable using the mouse. But also there are situations when a portable device is better, such as reading news or when i stay on the couch. The tablet is good to play games. I do not like big phones to navigate on internet.