Keeping laptop safe

Bob Z

What different ways is there to keep your laptop safe? To stop it getting stolen? and if does get stolen getting it back? and keeping sensitive information on it eg passwords safe?

x in the city

if your laptop gets stolen you wont get it back

period

you can pass word your bios

you can also protect your files, but its probably a bit complex for a novice but software can be got for the task

you can get a kensington lock for your laptop, bolt it onto the radiator and its pretty safe.:D

hope that helps...:p

Bob Z

Isnt there a way to know if someone has used after it was stolen? Its sends a signal back or something? Or you can track it down?

x in the city

do you work for the fbi or something?

Selik

This software came with my new Samsung netbook:

http://www.failsafe.com/

If my netbook gets stolen I can delete or retrieve data from the netbook, as well as determining it's location. The netbook can also be remotely bricked as well! If I subsequently got the netbook back it can be unlocked with a special code.

How well this works I may never know, but it the idea is certainly pretty good.

DeepBlue

http://www.ehow.com/how_2134688_lojack-laptop-computer.html

The tag can trigger alarms and even send emails. But it must be active. This means the user must remember to activate and deactivate the tag whenever there is a chance the laptop may be stolen.

However the above part seems a major flaw. Sod's Law dictates that your laptop will only be stolen when you've forgotten to activate the tag.

Alanstrainor

At the end of the day they can just format the hard drive and start again. As for passwords and the likes. You really shouldn't be keeping them on your netbook tbh. Pen and paper is better for that kind of stuff imo. And if you do decide to keep passwords on your laptop, they should be encrypted anyway.

monkeypants

Use something like Truecrypt to ensure that no one else can access your stuff. Make backups.