Where should I save documents when working in a computer lab?

Do NOT save any work on a lab machine hard drive.  It will be lost!  Lab machines clear themselves when they reboot and any work saved on the hard drive will be erased.  There are no exceptions!

 The suggested ways to save your work are:

Email
If you email your work to yourself you will have access to it at any computer on the internet.  You also do not have to worry about losing/damaging a floppy or a CD.

USB Flash Memory Drive
The fastest way to save your work is through the use of a portable external drive known as a USB Flash Memory Drive.  These can be purchased at any electronics store in various storage capacities.  To use, simply insert the adapter into the USB port of your computer.  This drive will be recognized and displayed under "My Computer".  This may be written to and erased infinitely. 

CD-R or CD-RW
Many of the computer lab machines are equipped with CD writers labeled as the D: drive.  Blank CD’s can be purchased at the bookstore, online or at a nearby office/electronics stores.  One can save large amounts of data on a CD and even rewrite on a CD-RW.  It is NOT the same as just reading and writing a floppy disk.

J: Drive
The J: drive is available in ALL labs.  It is an open area to temporarily save documents and files.  However, there is no security on this drive.  Therefore anything saved there is NOT confidential and could be deleted by ANYONE at ANYTIME.  This area is usually purged in the summertime or when it is too full.

Floppy Disk
The Information Technology Department DOES NOT recommend storing documents on floppy disk, the A: drive.  There is a high rate of failure and corruption with this media.  It always seems to happen after someone has spent several hours working on a paper!  In certain labs a machine may only have a CD writer or floppy and NOT both.