Stop Notebook Thief, Free Software Tracks and Recover Stolen Laptop

August 16, 2008 · Filed Under How To and Online Tutorials, Software · Comment 

Stop Notebook Thief, Free Software Tracks and Recover Stolen Laptop

Learn how to trace and recover your stolen laptop with Adeona and LocatePC, both of these software are free and has a built in function that email or reveal the thief’s IP address when he or she decided to log online. Now, to retrieve the thief IP address is fairly simple and straight forward, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to perform simple task like this.

Please note that the recovery of your laptop depends on certain situation such as:

  • Requires the thief to log online using your laptop with the software installed
  • If the thief decided to reformat the laptop, recovery process might not work.
  • Installation of software prior being stolen.
  • Unlike other paid recovery software, this is a DIY (Do it yourself) software, meaning to say you’ll have to retrieve the IP address without the assistant of a third party.
  • Since this is a free software, there is no guarantee of success.

Adeona

Adeona is an open source free software developed by a group of students/researchers in Washington, basically the software does what it says, to track the laptop thief by sending the IP address of the thief and a captured image of the thief with your webcam (mac only, why not PC?). Adeona has three main properties:

  • Private: Adeona uses state-of-the-art cryptographic mechanisms to ensure that the owner is the only party that can use the system to reveal the locations visited by a device.
  • Reliable: Adeona uses a community-based remote storage facility, ensuring retrievability of recent location updates.
  • Open source and free: Adeona’s software is licensed under GPLv2. While your locations are secret, the tracking system’s design is not.

The only drawback is the lack of central system for monitoring the laptop. In order to be able to track your laptop and the IP address, the thief has to log in to the World Wide Web while you run the recovery tool, what are the odds of you and the thief logging online simultaneously?

Step by Step installation guide and recovery process for Adeona

LocatePC

LocatePC is free software and it runs unobtrusively on your computer, unlike Adeona, LocatePC does not display any icons or popups prominently, this is to avoid any suspicious that might prevent the thief from logging online.

As soon as the thief connects to the internet a secret email is sent to you containing the details that you need to track your hardware.

locate pc recover laptop thief

Based on my experience, LocatePC is the better choice; it runs on stealth mode, and emails you the relevant information directly to your designated email address. Unlike Adeona, Locate PC requires some degree of knowledge in computer and the Internet. The only drawback is the lack of Web cam snapshot of the thief.

Since both software is compatible with each other, my advice is, install both in to your laptop.

Laptop Alarm

Laptop Alarm is not a recovery tool, more like a prevention tool. As the name implies, the alarm bell will goes off if:

  • When someone unplugs your A/C adapter,
  • When someone shuts down or logs off your laptop, or
  • When someone unplugs your USB mouse.

More about Laptop Alarm.

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Lenovo Linux PCs

August 9, 2007 · Filed Under Silicon Valley · Comment 

lenovo-mast-logo.gifLenovo, the world’s third largest computer maker announced that it will begin offering Linux as an option in its notebook computers, joining the ranks of other computer makers such as Dell. It appears that the market is responding to a weaker Windows Vista.

Looking at the entire scenario from a different point of view, if the market shows a demand for Linux PC, it could signal a desire for a change in operating system or possible an opportunity to purchase a cheaper computer compare to a preloaded windows. Either way, Microsoft Windows is here to stay for quite sometime.

p.s. I believe Acer would be the next company to announce a choice of Linux operating system.

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