Top ten ways you can prevent your laptop from disappearing or being harmed*.
- Lock your door - when you live in the dorms, it's so easy to leave your door unlocked while you go to the common areas or down the hall to the showers. Make sure you always take your doorkey (get a cute, waterproof keychain) even if your roomie is still in the room when you step out. It's even more important on weekend nights when you want to relax and go party. People have been known to target student dorms and apartments for just those times in order to ransack whatever they can: laptops; TVs; iPods, etc. Even your fellow students might be potential thieves, as depressing as that is to consider.
- Use a password and change it frequently - follow this instruction and you've just made your laptop far less attractive if the average thief can't access the data! You've also stopped anyone who can sit at your computer from using your system to send embarassing emails, post rude comments online, order merchandise with your account information or just snoop through your private information. Don't allow your roommate's dumb friend to change your WoW account password because you left the system open one day.
- Don't share your password - not even with your roomie, because his/her friends might not be as trustworthy. Your friend today may not be your friend tomorrow so if you have already breached this security basic, time to reset your password to something completely different.
- Lock it up, tie it down, set an alarm - buy a locking cable and use it to secure your laptop and/or CPU to something permanent like your desk, the radiator, the bed. USB alarm devices are becoming less expensive and allow you to be sure your laptop never gets physically separated from you. These little devices can be a big help if you bring the laptop to class and might inadvertantly leave it under the desk when you go. Use the alarm at all times, which means when you troll the stacks at the library (does anyone do that anymore), you have to bring the laptop along. I've even seen some USB alarms that work for your iPod - also a good item to secure when you're not actually using it.
- Use security software - some colleges provide it for free (it's in their best interest to stop the spread of malicious code on their networks) but if they didn't, don't skip this necessity! Get it, install it, update it and make sure it's working whenever you go online.
- Avoid peer-to-peer software - gosh, now I know I'm old. Of course, using peer-to-peer software is one of the top online activities at any university. Still, it's also one of the top ways people lose private data or have their computer turned into a botnet "zombie". Find another way to get your music if you can.
- Become a tagger - Personalize your laptop to make it unlikely a potential thief can say, "I thought it was mine". You can buy a cool skin at www.skinit.com or for a less expensive option, just ask your younger sister or cousin for some of her stickers.
- Don't walk away - none of us likes to feel abandoned and that goes for your laptop too. Even if you are "just walking across the cafe to get a coffee" or "just stepping down the aisle to get the homework handout from the front", you need to maintain contact (visual or physical) with that expensive piece of hardware you spent all that money on.
- Install a tracking device - A GPS device, a LoJack or something like it might not be a bad thing to consider for your next birthday request from your parent. You'll demonstrate such maturity, they will likely still get you a cool gift.
- Take a picture, it will last longer! - take a photo, make a file with important computer related info, like the purchase receipt, serial number (turn it over to find this), information about the hardware configuration, anything necessary to make a claim, should it actually get stolen. Of course, if you follow all these tips, that's far less likely!
*(Credit to the SANS.org for some of these.)