Make your PC difficult to steal

By Scott Dunn For little or no money, you can lower the chances that your computer will be targeted by thieves. Take a few simple steps now to make your notebook and desktop PCs easier to recover should they ever be lost.

• Hotel: Don't assume that items are safe just because they are locked in your hotel room. Get a room with a safe for storing laptops and other valuables, or take such items with you when you leave the room.
  

• Office: Notebook computers, removable hard drives, laptop memory cards, USB thumb drives, PDAs, and any other equipment in your office that is easily removed should be put in a locked cabinet overnight and on weekends. If your company doesn't provide such a cabinet, suggest that it get one.
  

• Traveling: Airports and other travel scenes present so many possible distractions that it takes only a moment for someone to snatch an unattended item or for you to leave something behind. Never leave a laptop visible in your car; if you must, stow it in the car's trunk, but try to avoid being seen locking such items there. If you need to put your computer down for a moment while you're in any public setting, keep the case between your feet.
  

The free Laptop Alarm alerts you when your computer is touched by someone. After you install the program and activate the lock function, you can set the laptop alarm to play a loud warning sound when the machine loses AC power, when its mouse moves or is unplugged, or when the system shuts down or logs off.


Figure 1. Laptop Alarm will sound an alert when the options you select occur.

Even if the notebook's sound is muted or turned down, Laptop Alarm turns the sound back on and plays the alarm at full blast. You can set a password to unlock your system or turn off the alarm.

Naturally, this software won't guard your computer in a coffee shop while you use the restroom. But if you need to pay attention to other things for a while, the program can help alert you if someone is tampering with your system.

Laptop Alarm is currently listed as a beta product, so some of its advertised features may not yet work. Still, the alarm worked quite well when I tested the program.

Full article at:     www.windowssecrets.com

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