Keep Your Laptop Yours With Mobile Security Devices

Apparently, 12,000 laptops each week sprout legs NOT belonging to their owners — and venture off with strangers of ill-intent (Ponemon Institute and Dell Computer). This mostly happens in “high distraction places” like airport security checkpoints, departure gates and drinking establishments where business execs and road warriors are educating clients and prospects on the finer points of this phenomenon called, The Final Four.

In an RV, where you may be roaming with the bears or enjoying Grand Ol’ Opry while your mobile office on wheels lies unwatched (at least, by you, that is), how can you protect your stuff?

Once stolen, only three in 10 travelers ever recover their laptops (fewer land the prospect’s account). As for the confidential info or customer data lost from the absent PC or tongue loosened by spirits during said Final Four outing, it’ll show up — in your competitor’s next Exclusive Priduct, and your Corporate Termination Exit Review…

PC Magazine SLIDESHOW (10)
Slideshow | All Shots

Laptop security is a crap-shoot. Best we can do is hope to thwart thieves. When I’m shacked up in a hotel — but venture out to a local haunt or watering hole, I leave my laptop in plain sight — locked tightly around a permanent fixture with a cable lock.

Beyond cable locks, other solutions include proximity alarms, software and duct tape to strap the laptop to your hands. Actually, PC offered a slideshow on 10 Laptop Security Products to keep your laptop and its data yours. Products include the PC Guardian Ezolution Multi Combo RS, Mobile Edge SecuriCable Key Lock, Targus Laptop Privacy Screens, Datamation Snap It Laptop Security Cable, Hush Communications StealthSurfer, M2SYS M2-S1 Fingerprint Reader, Yoggie Pico Personal, and LaptopLock. Continue reading “Keep Your Laptop Yours With Mobile Security Devices”

BackTrack My Way to the Home Office – or RV – Again

This past summer, as my family camped outside Concord, Mass., as part of my home office adventure called Home Office Highway.com,  I sauntered into a great wood. I was seeking the spirit of Henry David Thoreau. I was looking for peace and solitude among the evergreens and the crickets.

And I became lost.

I’d ventured off the beaten path onto a road less traveled. And for good reason. As dusk grew dark, it gets freakin’ scary in deep woods unknown. And that’s exactly where I found myself — without a Bushnell BackTrack personal GPS nativation system, locator and compass ($73). Continue reading “BackTrack My Way to the Home Office – or RV – Again”

A (New) Mobile Home Office on the High Seas

Sitting on Deck Six aboard Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas, Nicole is immersed in Twilight, the first in Stephenie Meyer’s vampire / fantasy series.

We’ve been at sea for four days, headed home tomorrow. I had all the tools to work from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, except one key ingredient: The Spirit.

I’ve long been chided for working from vacation. Heck, Home Office Highway was all about working while on vacation, or taking, as I coined it, a “workation.”

But this time, I needed no motivation. I got so caught up in relaxation and fun that I decided to avoid work altogether. Continue reading “A (New) Mobile Home Office on the High Seas”