Comments on: What To Do When Your Laptop Is Stolen

By: Student Laptop Security

Student Laptop Security — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:37:54 +0000

Lots of great advice. Laptop tracking software is definitely a smart investment. You can never be too safe these days. Check out our website for more information on how to protect your laptop at school.

By: Nonchalant Savant

Nonchalant Savant — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:29:05 +0000

A buddy of mine told me about a program called “Laptop Cop.” From what I understand about it, one of the key features is that if your laptop is stolen, it will notify you when the thief has logged onto the internet so that firstly you can download important files from it. Evidently it runs in the background so that the thief is unaware that this is happening. I believe it has some sort of tracking capability as well.

By: Jonah Stein

Jonah Stein — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:48:00 +0000

Backup in the cloud!

Extra hard drive copies are pretty cool, but nothing like having your computer remember to back up for you any time it finds a network connection!

Carbonite.com and backblaze.com are both cheaper than extra hard drives and let you recover anytime, anywhere, even from a total disaster like a fire.

By: Gleb Budman

Gleb Budman — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:15:12 +0000

Lisa, I’m sorry about your loss and wanted to let you know you’re not alone. We found that 94% of people do not do regular backups and nearly 1 of 2 people lose data every year.

I would like to recommend our service, Backblaze, for you and your readers. It costs just $5/month and automatically backs up all your data online (including connected external drives.) And, the key thing is, it takes just a minute to get started. Try it free: http://www.backblaze.com

Gleb Budman
CEO, Bakblaze

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:11:43 +0000

Want to learn a new way to backup the data to S3? Try CloudBerry Backup. It is powered by Amazon S3 reliable and cost efficient storage. If you want to take part in beta sign up on the website http://cloudberrydrive.com What safer place to keep your files than Amazon’s servers?

By: Pat Berry

Pat Berry — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:58:55 +0000

Regarding encryption options: TrueCrypt is a free, open-source application for securely encrypting your data. It’s easy to use, very effective, and uncrackable if you use a strong password. It’s available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. (I’m not affiliated with the project in any way; I just use it and like it.)

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Netmeg: Your backup practices sound very sensible, but instead of buying individual external hard drives for each computer you own, why not buy a Drobo and back up ALL your machines to it? It uses RAID technology, so even if one of the physical drives in the Drobo fails, you don’t lose any data. (I’m not affiliated with them either.)

http://drobo.com/

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:35:40 +0000

Horrrible thing to happen! But it’s good that you use the experience to warn others on how to be prepared … I think I now have a new checklists of things I should do.

By: Jon Henshaw

Jon Henshaw — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:33:55 +0000

Using Dropbox for auto-syncing your documents and Backblaze for automatically backing up your entire drive online are data lifesavers for people who are lazy like me. Nice helpful article though. Definitely something I'm going to bookmark.

By: Yawn Webmaster!

Yawn Webmaster! — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:51:56 +0000

It’s bad news when this happens. My advice is….Don’t keep personal stuff on a laptop, if you need this stuff for web access (user name and passwords) the chances are that you are going to have a web access. Use a bookmark script and hack it so you can store your personal details. Then just put it under layers and layers of security, on a domain that has never been listed and doens’t get indexed.

Drop me on any planet with a nude laptop and an internet connection and I can acceess all my software and user accounts in the time it takes to download. Come steal my laptop..I need a new one anyway on insurance!

By: Shashi Kapoor

Shashi Kapoor — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:08:03 +0000

Oh dear, sorry to hear that some crazy fool has done away with your prized machine. You missed the final steps though:
- Quit your job to train in the art of assassination and tracking
- Use your new skills to hunt down the thief.