A couple of days back, a friend plugged me for advice on buying a brand new laptop. While she was all agog for Dell or HP, which I guess is the mood-of-the-moment in college circles, I pointed out that Toshiba had come out with an irresistible offer with their Satellite C640-X4012/13 laptops.
With Intel i5-2430M/4GB DDR3/500GB SATA/14” (Non OS), the price is an unbeatable Rs. 32,000/- all inclusive (~$650). Dell or HP laptops with similar configuration cost about 9 to 10,000 more - and that is at Ritchie Street, Chennai. A Philips 5.1 Home Theatre speakers were also thrown in to sweeten the deal.
8-D
Needless to say that she went for it and wheedled away with a copy of Windows 7 and Office 2010 to boot; though Office 2010 starter edition is supposed to be bundled with the ‘Non-OS’ Satellite C640.
/scratch, scratch/
She asked me for other drivers, codec packs and Anti Virus/Anti Malware and I gave her the pen drive with their latest versions along with the batch file for quick, silent installation. She also asked me about tracking software, which I hadn’t talked much about before; though I faintly recollect writing about them somewhere. Can’t blame her as I’ve heard of 4 devices (2 laptops, 1 iPhone and 1 Android) disappearing in various colleges within this academic year.
AFAIK there are (were) only 2 free/open tracking software for Laptops, Netbook, Smartphone et. al. One is the First ever open source tracker from University of Washington Adeano, which as of now is probably defunct. Sadly, Adeano was too early for Smartphones too.
The other is another free/open software Prey [http://preyproject.com/], which has been under constant development and is at ver. 0.5.3 for Windows, now. It is also available for Mac, Linux systems and Smartphones - iPhone and those running Android.
:-)
The free Prey is a little limited as you can add/track only 3 devices but with paid versions of Prey you have the ability to track hundreds of devices, retain hundreds of reports, active mode, on-demand mode, etc. But the free version of Prey is good enough for poor students and struggling bloggers like me.
It is simple to setup, just an email ID and a password on the control dashboard - either online or at the device while installing Prey. After that let the Prey client run. God forbid, if required, Prey is easy to activate from the online control panel and locate the device.
Then of course you’ll have to approach the police - I strongly advice you not to approach the culprits, if your laptop or other devices are stolen, and you’ve positive proof of its location - even with a webcam picture.
That said, Prey has its limitations. There is also no provision to delete files on a stolen device, though on Smartphones there is a provision to ‘lock’ them. It installs in the hard drive (C:\Prey is the default) and is not hidden or delete protected. So, if a thief knows about Prey or other ‘such’ software, he can disable it.
For e.g., Comodo Defence+ warns of bash, curl and cron, and you’ll have to tell Comodo to trust them - they are that easy to locate.
I made a point to tell the friend to keep her mouth shut about the ‘Prey’ installation. Imagine blabbering to one of her ‘college mates’ about Prey and the mate turns out to be the one to filch the laptop!
:-D
Anyway here is a screenshot of my test run on my Desktop. Just to show that Prey is installed and working fine - did a fine job with the hardware list.
My Sage half stutters, ‘Prey is not 100% guarantee that a stolen device would be recovered. But it sure is better than leaving the device without a tracker. And it is free!’
With Intel i5-2430M/4GB DDR3/500GB SATA/14” (Non OS), the price is an unbeatable Rs. 32,000/- all inclusive (~$650). Dell or HP laptops with similar configuration cost about 9 to 10,000 more - and that is at Ritchie Street, Chennai. A Philips 5.1 Home Theatre speakers were also thrown in to sweeten the deal.
8-D
Needless to say that she went for it and wheedled away with a copy of Windows 7 and Office 2010 to boot; though Office 2010 starter edition is supposed to be bundled with the ‘Non-OS’ Satellite C640.
/scratch, scratch/
She asked me for other drivers, codec packs and Anti Virus/Anti Malware and I gave her the pen drive with their latest versions along with the batch file for quick, silent installation. She also asked me about tracking software, which I hadn’t talked much about before; though I faintly recollect writing about them somewhere. Can’t blame her as I’ve heard of 4 devices (2 laptops, 1 iPhone and 1 Android) disappearing in various colleges within this academic year.
AFAIK there are (were) only 2 free/open tracking software for Laptops, Netbook, Smartphone et. al. One is the First ever open source tracker from University of Washington Adeano, which as of now is probably defunct. Sadly, Adeano was too early for Smartphones too.
The other is another free/open software Prey [http://preyproject.com/], which has been under constant development and is at ver. 0.5.3 for Windows, now. It is also available for Mac, Linux systems and Smartphones - iPhone and those running Android.
:-)
The free Prey is a little limited as you can add/track only 3 devices but with paid versions of Prey you have the ability to track hundreds of devices, retain hundreds of reports, active mode, on-demand mode, etc. But the free version of Prey is good enough for poor students and struggling bloggers like me.
It is simple to setup, just an email ID and a password on the control dashboard - either online or at the device while installing Prey. After that let the Prey client run. God forbid, if required, Prey is easy to activate from the online control panel and locate the device.
Then of course you’ll have to approach the police - I strongly advice you not to approach the culprits, if your laptop or other devices are stolen, and you’ve positive proof of its location - even with a webcam picture.
That said, Prey has its limitations. There is also no provision to delete files on a stolen device, though on Smartphones there is a provision to ‘lock’ them. It installs in the hard drive (C:\Prey is the default) and is not hidden or delete protected. So, if a thief knows about Prey or other ‘such’ software, he can disable it.
For e.g., Comodo Defence+ warns of bash, curl and cron, and you’ll have to tell Comodo to trust them - they are that easy to locate.
I made a point to tell the friend to keep her mouth shut about the ‘Prey’ installation. Imagine blabbering to one of her ‘college mates’ about Prey and the mate turns out to be the one to filch the laptop!
:-D
Anyway here is a screenshot of my test run on my Desktop. Just to show that Prey is installed and working fine - did a fine job with the hardware list.
My Sage half stutters, ‘Prey is not 100% guarantee that a stolen device would be recovered. But it sure is better than leaving the device without a tracker. And it is free!’
Thanks for this informative blog, Now there are many helpline services like HP Support Center who used to provide you the best assistance related to problem occurred in your laptop.
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