LAlarm is a free laptop security alarming software. It has several different alarms to help protect your laptop, the most important of them being the Theft Alarm.

Install LAlarm

Download and install the free laptop security software here. LAlarm is free for personal use, and version 4.0 works with Windows Vista, XP (SP2 or SP3). On Windows 7, you can try the latest beta version 5.0. The download is less than 1MB, and the setup program looks the same as the main program that you launch after installation.

LAlarm runs as a background process when you start your laptop. In my tests, it took up an insignificant 7.5MB of memory, so you probably won’t even notice that it is running.

Improve Laptop Security and Protect Against Theft

Securing your laptop is simple and can be done in two ways:

1. If your laptop is connected to a power outlet, simply lock it with the Win+L key shortcut

2. If there is no power outlet available:

a) Use a neck-strap or USB extension cord with any old flash drive and insert it into a USB port

b) Tie the neck-strap or cord to a firm table

c) Lock the laptop with the Win+L shortcut

The LAlarm website shows an example of how this is done:

That’s it. Now, when someone attempts to steal your laptop, either the power cord or the USB flash drive will get disconnected from the laptop. This triggers the Theft Alarm, and the thief will get a nasty shock because the laptop will emit a loud siren like a car alarm. In my testing, I was worried about neighbors rushing to see what was happening! The alarm stops only when you unlock the laptop by entering your login credentials.

For additional laptop security, you can also enable the Inattention Alarm in the Options > Alarm tab. This will trigger if there is a specified period of inactivity on your laptop in unsafe zones. Let’s see what “unsafe zones” are next.

Restrict Laptop Use To A Safe Area

You can use IP addresses to define “Safe Zones” in which your laptop is considered safe. If anyone tries to use it outside the pre-defined safe zones, it triggers the Perimeter Alarm.

The Inattention Alarm also makes use of these zones, so that alarms don’t go off when you take a lunch break at work.

Email and SMS Alerts

After installation, one of the first things you probably want to do is setup email alerts for the alarms, for which you can only use a Gmail account and need to supply your Gmail password. As this is software installed locally on your laptop, you need not be concerned about supplying your Gmail password. LAlarm sends you a test email to verify that the email is working properly.

You can also configure SMS alerts to your mobile phone using Email-to-SMS gateways. Note that these alerts will work only if there is an Internet connection present at the time of laptop theft.

Automatically Destroy Data In Case Of Theft

In case your laptop does get stolen, you can configure LAlarm to automatically destroy pre-defined data folders. You set these via the Options > Destruction tab.

In addition to destroying data, you can also run any custom programs you want to execute in case of theft from the Options > Theft Response tab.

Battery and Disk Protection Alarms

LAlarm also has Disk and Battery protection to help you maximize your laptop battery life and warn you of impending hard disk failure. The battery alarm is triggered at low battery levels that you can customize, and works with Li-ion type batteries.

Doesn’t this laptop security software sound too good to be free? Will you use it to protect your laptop against theft? Let us know in the comments!

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This will work for most people, but then there are the determined thieves who target the prized works of well known photographers without giving the poor schmuck a dime.

You see, watermarks aren’t 100% fool-proof; there are programs that some unscrupulous characters use to digitally remove the watermarks or to minimize them so they’re barely visible. Thus defeating the purpose of trying to protect images by using what is now a primitive method – not to mention crude and unattractive.

In this article I’m going to show you three great ways to protect your web images without breaking the bank on complex encryption programs.

Splicing

One method to protect web images is to cut them up into several different images and put them all side by side to form one whole image. Then, anyone who tries to save the image will only get a small segment of it. The result is that they have to tediously click around the image, guessing where the cuts have been made and then paste them all together. Big images such as the ones found on photographers’ and artists’ blogs can be cut up into over 20 or 30 pieces.

This acts as a deterrent to most copies and they’ll look elsewhere.

Probably the best program for the novice user to automatically splice images before they go live on your site is Super Simple Image Tiles.

All you have to do to activate it on a particular image, once you have installed it on your web directory using the instructions included in the download, is to slightly alter the image’s HTML. Most blogging platforms such as Wordpress and Blogger offer HTML editors alongside the text editor. Simply enter ‘Protect’ in the image HTML as I did in the screenshot above.

J-Query Plug-in

The way most people steal an image is to simply right-click on it and select ‘Save As’.

The tried and tested method, if you will. However, you can nip the problem in the bud by taking away the ‘Save’ function when someone right-clicks on your image.

The plug in for this is available right here to download for free, along with the instructions. It will also disable any kind of image saving toolbar or add-on in a browser which a user may utilise instead of right clicking.

The plug-in is as lightweight as possible and as such shouldn’t effect the speed or functionality of your pages, all the while keeping your images safe.

Again, this program simply needs to be installed onto your web directory as a plug-in which the big names offer on their dashboards.

Embed as Flash

The final option to protect web images is to upload your images as a flash file instead of as an image. This will disable right clicking as well but it also gives you more options about what to do with your images in terms of web-design which would be hindered if you were using a plug-in which may conflict with Flash design. Basically, you can style your images using CSS properties.

SWF–IR (the SWF originating from Flash’s file extension and the IR standing for ‘Image Replacement’) is available here. Upload it to your web directory.

Then, to put it to work on your post, place this HTML in the <head> section of your post:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”swfir.js”></script>

So there you have it webmasters and photographers. Protect your images the best way you can for free by using the above methods. Remember, images are never 100% secure online but these methods will stop 99% of thieves from stealing your high-resolution originals.

BONUS: To see whether people have already copied your image(s) online, use Google’s ‘Similar Images’ app here.

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When walking around with a laptop, you need to constantly watch out for it. Lose your attention for a second and your computer can be gone.

Even more dangerous than getting your laptop stolen, in some cases, is getting your data stolen. A lot of people walk around every day, carrying information that must not be allowed to fall in the wrong hands. Identity theft and any breach of personal privacy are just one side of the problem. Imagine the horror of a big-time CEO when his laptop gets stolen, especially in these economic unstable times.

LaptopLock

LaptopLock, a nifty application, provides a nice and easy back-up plan, both for the relocation of your system after it’s stolen, and for protecting what’s on it.

The application can destroy or encrypt data, or run set actions, after you signal from a remote location. Even when the laptop never connects to the web, the application can trigger these actions after a given time, when the thieves fail to provide the right password.

Installing and Linking LaptopLock

Setting it up is quite easy, though it requires several steps.

For starters, you need an account on the LaptopLock website. Signing up is entirely free, and doesn’t even require activation.

In the online control panel, you can add one or more systems. Simply enter a name for easy identification, and hit the button. That computer will then be added to the database, and linked with a unique Computer ID.

Next, on your laptop, download and install the LaptopLock agent software.
We can now link our laptop to our online account. Upon starting the agent, you’ll be required to enter your Account Email, which you used to sign up, and the Computer ID.

You can choose whether to enter a password for accessing the software. This will also trigger any set actions if the system goes too long without an internet connection, and the user fails to provide the password. However, using this will cut back on the stealth as well, and might warn the thieves into taking additional precautions.

Configuring Security Plans

In the Security tab, you can configure and manage your plan of action. This basically says what needs be done in case of theft.

The available options include the deleting and encrypting of set data, showing a notification to the user – perhaps with a possible reward – or launching an external application.

All encrypted files can be recovered afterwards, in Security – Recovery Options.

Signaling Theft and Tracking

Back in the online control panel, signaling laptop theft is as easy as hitting the button. Your security plan will be carried out as soon as the stolen system connects to the internet.

Check Information shows the last ten locations of your laptop on a map. This probably isn’t as accurate as a GPS, but it will help the police in any investigation.

LaptopLock can help you in case your laptop gets stolen. Got any other tips? Share them below!

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Somewhere in the path of iPhone software development, Apple opened its door and invited programmers to create applications for the iPhone. People began to create applications (mostly games) using the accelerometer feature. Users then could control the movements of the game character just by slightly tilting the position of the phone.

There are other Mac products with similar features, but overshadowed by their little siblings’ popularity, the feature is less known by the general public.

Brief history of Accelerometer

Accelerometer technology was first introduced by Apple to its laptop products (iBooks and Powerbooks) around March 2005 – way before iPhone’s first “public appearance” in January 2007. However, the Accelerometer feature on Apple laptops goes under a different name: Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS).

This feature is built to protect the hard drive and all the data inside by automatically locking the hard disk if it detects sudden physical position change – something like “heavily bumped”, “dropped”, ‘thrown”, and such. You get the idea.

Now, every Mac laptop (Macbook, Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro) are equipped with the SMS feature. Yet, there are only a few applications developed to utilize this feature. Most are just for fun, some are even completely useless, but there are also SMS-based applications that are actually useful.

Installing The Anti-Theft Alarm

One of the most common problems for mobile gadgets – especially the mouth watering ones like Macbooks – is theft. The mobility makes them an easy target to be stolen. It’s true that the only way you can make sure your gadgets will never be stolen is by never buying them, but as the wise man says, “A little protection is better than no protection at all.”

Speaking of Mac laptops, I found several similar SMS-based applications to help you prevent thievery, such as: JackSMS, iAlertU, Lockdown, and MultiAlarm (abandoned but still useful).

JackSMS was mentioned slightly in the previous Mac article about Proximity, so why don’t we look at it more deeply now.

The first time JackSMS is opened; it will automatically display the Preferences screen. Here users can set several things according to their preferences.

Some of the settings are:

• Whether to launch the app automatically at every login
• Whether to set the sound every time the application is on or off.
• If user uses Apple Remote control, choose which button of the Apple Remote Control to use to activate/deactivate the app.
• Adjust the sensitivity of SMS and the duration of the alarm.

There are some special settings to choose to be implemented when the alarm goes off:

1. Send mobile text. Only applicable for US mobile numbers.

2. Email picture captured by iSight, to help you identify the thief.

Anytime you need to reconfigure, the Preferences is accessible through the menubar icon.

JackSMS also comes with sample AppleScript and PhoneEvents script for Salling Clicker and BluePhoneElite.

This application will be perfect as an automatic anti-theft alarm when paired with the Proximity sensor.

In the next part of “Utilize Your Mac SMS”, we will take a look at some games and fun SMS-based applications.

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Frankly, I hate to share my own, private laptop, however for a long time it was inevitable. Over that time people lost respect and thought it was OK to use my computer, just to look something up real quick.

It annoyed me to no end, so I unconsciously developed a few strategies to make it very unattractive to use my laptop. Let me share…
1) No Desktop Icons

You wouldn’t believe how many people are stunned by an empty desktop. They’ll rather leave it alone than mess with the start button or some funny looking menus.

2) Different Interface
Even an alternative Windows theme is unsettling for the standard user. Macs are not commonly used around here, and I found that transformation packs can do wonders. People seriously believe my computer is a Mac, which makes it seem very complicated to use, and thus unattractive. Let me say the laptop case looks nothing like a Mac and the keyboard gives it away with the infamous Windows key. Yet all they see is the interface and it stops them dead in their tracks. I installed FlyakiteOSX for the slightly different look, but there are a few alternatives..

3) No Taskbar

Now that’s a killer! Something must be seriously wrong with this machine and I’d say it deters close to 90% of people. Unsolicited users that keep their hand firm on the mouse in hopes of uncovering a hidden secret must be very curious. Those that have the bright idea to use the Windows key, are true pros.
I hide my taskbar with XNeat Windows manager. Actually the taskbar is not hidden, it’s just transparent and lights up on mouse-over. It’s also a good way to hide open windows. If you want to be super smart, don’t keep the taskbar in its default location or replace it entirely with something else, for example a dock program.

4) Unusual Icons
Personally, I love to use unique icons for most folders on my computer. Before I used transformation packs I discovered that even using some of the not so commonly seen default Windows icons, makes people be wary of using my laptop, since they don’t understand what they see, if they see anything at all.

Right-click any folder, select >properties, switch to the >Customize tab, and click the >Change Icon… button, then pick an icon from the SHELL32.dll list and enjoy.

If you’re tired of the same old Windows icons, try Free Icons Download, CrystalXP.net or the Icon Archive for something fresh. Note that you will need .ico files to replace folder icons, but many icons actually come as .png files. There is an ingenious little tool called AveIconifier which can instantly transform dozens of .png files to .ico and vice versa.

5) Ultimate Protection

You can simply log yourself out when you leave your desk and use a Kensington lock at all times. However, for those times when a lock is not practicable or when you just want to go that one step further to keep obtrusive people away and efficiently protect your computer from theft, get your hands on a free copy of Laptop Alarm. It’s a small exe tool, no installation required, just download and run. You can activate up to four different actions that will trigger a very loud alarm. They are loss of AC power, shutdown or log off, unplugging of the USB mouse, and mouse movement. In Options you can set an unlock password and the sensitivity for the mouse movement detection. Unfortunately, the SMS alarm service signup is not working. Once your computer is locked with Laptop Alarm, it’s safe unless the password is hacked or both AC and battery power are removed. The tool also works on desktop computers.

Constant change has been the greatest success factor in keeping my laptop to myself. From the start all desktop shortcuts have been gone, one day the interface looks like Vista, the other like a Mac, then the wallpaper keeps changing, now there’s this funny menu, the other day there was some weird second menu, as of late the taskbar is gone and what’s next, is the damn thing going to speak to me?
In the meantime we have a separate laptop for presentations and the like at work. Mission completed.

Are you in a similar situation? Do you proudly share your computer? If not, how do you preserve your digital privacy? Please share!

(By) This post was written by one of our regular authors, Tina from Recommended.

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I have seen every security option available and NOTHING is fool-proof. I have witnessed someone picking up a table and simply removing the laptop lock from the leg and running with the machine – In a crowded food court! The worst one I think was a guy who decided to bring it with him into the bathroom and set it down on the little table by the door. He did his business, washed his hands and when he went to turn around, he discovered it was jacked!

What do you do then? Maybe your machine is covered on your home owners or renters insurance but that still won’t get back your data or computer. So a little application called LocatePC that lives on your Windows-based machine gives you a little more added security. All it does is monitor your IP address. If it detects a change in your IP it sends a pre-configured email. Interesting concept and best of all it is free. You download the small installer from here and run through a super simple setup that asks you for your email address, an email server that does POP3 and the message you want to send. They recommend adding your Model number, Serial and any other pertinent data you can think of. Here are some screen shots of the configurable options.

After setting her up I was prompted with this warning:

That is a really smart warning! Especially for some users that are only able to retrieve their email via VPN. (I think it should say maybe you want to use your Gmail account…). Now this is supposed to be “Covert” software so there is no task bar icon or program file associated with it.

You can however press Alt+Shift+Home to bring up its settings window. It needs to run at startup to do its thing in case of an IP change. If it is not running it will not do anything!

I simulated an IP change and was greeted within 3 minutes with an email from myself. My email looked a little something like this:

************************************
Message sent: 05/21/08 09:02:50 (universal time: 05/21/08 13:02:50)

Computer’s host name: AskTheAdminTablet
Logged in Windows account name: AskTheAdmin

Computer’s web IP address reported by ip.locatepc.com: 38.0.0.0 (CHANGED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS!)
To learn more about this IP address, use the IP tests at www.dnsstuff.com.

Computer’s local IP address(es):
Adapter 1: 192.168.1.29

Computer’s MAC address(es):
Adapter 1 (Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet Adapter(LNE100TX v4) – Packet Scheduler Miniport): 00-14-BF-56-54-DA

Trace route from computer to www.microsoft.com:
Hop Name/IP Addr
1 (CHANGED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS!)
2 gi1-46.3836.mpd01.jfk01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.250.10.73]
3 te4-3.mpd03.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.24.146]
4 Request timed out
5 iij.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.12.118]
6 ge-0-3-0-44.nyc-64cb-1a.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.37.2]

Identifying information (owner name/address, computer brand/model/serial number):

AskTheAdmin.com Karl L. Gechlik HP 2710P Tablet Serial# saslakslp1

————————————
IF YOU RECEIVED THIS MESSAGE AFTER YOUR COMPUTER WAS STOLEN:
Show this message to law enforcement authorities. They may be able to use it to identify the ISP, and the ISP can probably find out which account was using the computer when the email was sent. This may lead to the identification of the perpetrator(s) and the recovery of your computer.

————————————
This message was automatically created and sent by LocatePC v1.5.0
LocatePC web site: http://www.locatepc.com

Now I don’t know how much the local authorities are actually going to help you but, now you have some information about where your machine is at least virtually. You can then do some super sleuthing to track down where that IP is. Using free tools like this one that lives at http://www.seomoz.org/ip2loc

Your results will look something like this:

Uh-oh! It looks like our laptop is sitting in our office… Oh wait it was just a test No ass kicking neccessary this morning!

(By): Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at askTheAdmin.com today.

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