[GLLUG] Lo-Jack

[Stephan Andre']

On Wednesday 23 May 2007 21:43:55 Julie Code wrote:
> Karl,
>     That's good that you've heard good things about it, I was kind of
> scared that maybe I wasted my money on it..  By the way, on the back of it
> it says it 4 year subscription which I am assuming I get a 4 years
> subscription.  I wonder how it works if it is software, seems like they'd
> be able to find it on your computer? Does anyone know? I wonder if it works
> good with Linux or not or just the windows partition I'll have on there.  I
> bet it won't matter in my case.  There is a website about it at
>
> www.lojackforlaptops.com
>
> if anyone is interested..... Well...see ya guys tomorrow.
>
> Julie

I know of both successes and failures with it.

I doubt it will work with Linux, but you can check that on their
web site.  If this will be a dual boot machine, make it boot
Windows by default, such that if it ever does get stolen, the
lojack software will be running.

Yes, it would certainly be possible to determine if it was on
the laptop.  This is why some laptop theft organizations
throw the hard disk away immediately after "getting" it,
making it that much harder for you to prove the machine
is yours.

Their site sure is designed to scare people.  I'm wondering 
how accurate those numbers are, but then again there are
a huge number of laptops out now.  I'm not sure I believe
that 1 in 10 number.

The  best security for your laptop is to have it with you,
preferably in a backpack.  Don't leave the poor thing sitting
there in a coffee shop unguarded, etc.  And of course, make
backups of the important stuff you do with it.  Organize your
data such that everything valuable and changing is in some
directory like w (for work) and then you can roast CD/DVDs
based on that dir, or dirs inside that.  You'll be surprised at
how small your day-to-day data is.  I have 320G in my laptop
and about 6G of the i-can't-lose-it type of stuff, plus a lot more
static data that doesn't need frequent backups, since it does
not change over time.

--STeve Andre'