That's all good and well for someone operating in a business / server environment but for the average user: Hey want to use bitcoin? OK:
1.) Go buy a 2 TB hard drive
2.) Install
3.) Download bitcoin and configure it to use this secondary drive.
4.) Let it run for a month to download and process the block chain
5.) Enjoy!
It's really unrealistic.
P.S. To the guy that said it's only 11 GB... mine is over 15 GB fore my bitcoin data dir. If it's only 11 where is my extra 4 GB coming from? I don't have one billion addresses in my address book or addresses of my own. My specific user data cannot be more than a few kilobytes.
Want to use bitcoin? OK:
Download vanitygen.exe
./vanitygen.exe 1CIMINE
output:
public key: 1CIMINE23HssO34H9FjsduFq3HapP32jLjfi3
private key 5J39H40h48hwh2H3gJ30wdfFkh23biedfhFksdhFaAb
Send Bitcoin to public key.
When you need to spend, import keys to blockchain.info and send them. Generate new keys. Send remaining BTC to new public key. Keep in cold storage. (or keep a small amount for spending at an online wallet, the rest in cold storage)