Flavert Media Lab {The Blog}

Do you always find it a problem to go to toilet when you’re working alone ? I bet most of us are. In fact, I am.

Of course for us, who work with laptops, it’s the most precious things. All the documents, files, spreadsheets, company secret weapon inside it. Not to forget the laptop itself is precious. So be cautious even when you ditch your bag at the sofa and proceed to the counter to make order. The moment your eyes looking away from your laptop, it isn’t safe anymore. So below I would like to share some tips that I practice to make sure my laptop always safe.

Order before taking a place

Depends on the location you go, if you went to Self-serviced restaurant, don’t ever leave your belongings to the spot you want to work. Even it’s for a minute. I know you want to ‘mark your territory’ and didn’t want other people to take it, but it will risk your thing. The alternative is always have a something else to mark with. Such as jackets, blazers ( but don’t put wallet/car key inside it ), or you could put tumbler or umbrella, to mark your territory, if you must.

Baristas/Food servers is your guards

If you have an urge to go to toilet, or need to pick up a call and require some silence that will leave your laptop unattended, then ask the friendly waiter or baristas to look over your laptop. I’ve once, ask Bangsar Village 2 guards to look over my laptops even I already ask the baristas to watch for it. Can’t rely much on baristas and waiter sometimes because they’re gonna be occupied with customers so I decided to ask the guard. You can ask people nearby your desk to look over it, well that if you trust them.

Kensington Lock

Kensington Lock is one of the effective solution if you’re working alone, doubles with help from guards and waiters. Lock your laptop to an immobile objects such as pillars, or the desk. And when tying the lock to the desk, always makes it hard for thief to dismantle in minutes. I usually lock my laptop with table and chair. That way the thief will need more time and of course, they have to steal the table and chairs all along, unless they’re well prepared enough to bring Metal Cutter to cut in a snap. That’s why even I’m using Kensington Lock, I always ask the waiters and guards to guard my stuff.

Co-Working

At this moment, you’ll surely miss your officemate. What you can do is bring your officemate to work outside with you or ask your best friend who working with other company and can work outside to accompany you. This way, all of the problems and solution above can be solved. However, beware if you’re co-working with person who you didn’t know so much, you’ve just met them once or twice or ten times, or didn’t consider best of best of best of best of closest friends ( notice how deep the relation is). Why? They might be the one who can become the bad person too in this cases. I for one thing, still lock the laptops even if I’m having a meeting with client and need to go to toilet. If the clients ask your action that seem distrust them, just tell them it’s your policy.

Software – iAlertU

For Mac users, there’s a software named iAlertU that will arm your laptop. It’s pretty nifty Freeware. When you wanted to leave your laptop, you can ‘arm’ your laptop and leave it. The application will ‘arm’ your laptop with alarm and whenever something happens to your laptop, it will blast it alarm sound just like Car Alarm. There’s 6 detection sensors

1. Keyboard – it will alarmed if someone press the keyboard. I disabled this because I need to disarm the alarm.
2. Motion Sensors – it will alarmed if someone just pull the laptop and move it’s motion sensors.
3. Trackpad/mouse – it will alarmed if touch/use the mouse/trackpad. I disabled this because I need to disarm the alarm.
4. AC Adapter – it will alarmed if someone tripped and when they steal they just pull out the power
5. Devices – if you’re sticking your USB, and someone pulled it.
6. Screen close – You leave your laptop with ‘open-screen’ and when they steal they fold it, it will trigger the alarm.

Besides blasting it Car-Alarm sound, the application also will take picture of the thief and mail it to you. That’s nifty for a free application.

So I hope all the guides above will help you to secure your laptop. Be Aware. Be very aware of your surroundings.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 11:53 pm and is filed under Article, English, Productivity Tips, Tools & Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.