When I first heard that over a million notebook computers are lost every year, I could not believe it. But apparently, a study commissioned by Ponemon Instiute showed that in the United States airports alone, 12,000 notebooks are lost every week. Luckily I have not lost a notebook, but so far, I have lost three cellphones over a 10 year period.
Fortunately, notebook prices are going down every year, and losing one does not mean an arm and a leg now. Ten years ago, I remember that a good notebook computer would cost almost a third of a small car. Now, for the money you spend on a small car, you can easily buy 20 notebooks. And these 20 notebooks would all be better and faster, and have more storage and memory than the one 10 years ago. That is how the price of technology have fallen vis a vis the car.
Anyhow, what is painful in losing a notebook are two. ONe is you lost your data. With that, you just make sure that you have a great backup. That means normally for most people that you have to buy an external hard disk where you can safely back up your computer and then if you lose it, then you can still recover it. If external hard disks are a major drag, you can think of backing up your data now on a thumb drive. The thumb drive you can put inside your pocket or in your key chain, and a 4 gigabyte one will cost less than a thousand nowadays.
The other painful thing is the realization that you may have valuable data that will fall on the wrong hands. If the data is important then you want to make sure that your hard disk is encrypted - this comes now for free when you buy Vista Business or Ultimate edition.
The other is to get a notebook with anti-theft protection, for which the latest Lenovo Thinkpad T400 series claims it have. This technology was developed by Intel and adopted first by Lenovo, and it is a series of technologies that makes an enterprise department easier to manage the various notebook computers assigned to people in the company.
IT departments can set policies for laptop security. For example, if a notebook is disconnected from a central server for a long period of time or if it detects a certain number of log-in failures, the laptop could be set to shut down.
Also in conjunction with security software like Computrace, the IT department may be able to track where a notebook is at a given time, if the notebook is used, and logs into the internet. when it is traced, the IT department can also send a message that will disable the computer so that it can no longer be used.
Since the software can be put on firmware, that means it will still activate even if the thief reformats the hard disk. Of course, the thief can still use the computer and never log into the internet, but then, most computers are almost useless when you cannot use it with the internet.
Apparently, human error abounds - and technology aids in human error.
In another study conducted by University of Utah, they found out that there are many more traffic accidents nowadays because of cellphone usage. Of course, it is dangerous to text or even dial when you are driving, and even then, theys ay that even people who use hands free phones or speaker phones are not exempt. Even when drivers are using a hands free cell phone, driving performance can be compromised, because the driver obviously is not paying full attention to driving, and instead is concentrating on the conversation.
I can testify to that. I once had an accident bumping to the rear of the car when texting. How about you? don’t text and drive!
This article is originally written by Wilson Ng. Visit his blog at www.bizdrivenlife.net
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