To Save You From Losing Your Laptop And The Dreams Of Your Life

The modern laptop computer is slowly altering the fabric of our culture. With a laptop sporting wi-fi connectability, and a broadband internet stream going through a decent router, the laptop can be used anywhere in the house, and sometimes outdoors, to get the internet. I predict that soon the adults and young people in an average American family will all be bringing them to the den to watch the TV together but multitask by working on their laptops separately at the same time. I know many households where this is the norm now and the trend will probably spread.

Of course the laptop is now ubiquitous in business, education, and government, and has become indispensable for communications. We use them for all kinds of neat purposes. And some use them for purposes that are not so neat.

The point is that the "home" laptop has become the repository for the dreams of our lives. Many people have all the emails of their lives with their loved ones there. They have hundreds or even thousands of songs they love stored there. They may have hundreds or more pictures of the people they love there. In spite of warnings to back up all that intimate data on a secondary storage unit, most people don't. That's just human nature and/or perhaps some folks are just naive or negligent.

Yet every day, sadly, hundreds of laptops are stolen by thieves. And when the laptop goes, there goes all those personal letters. There goes all those songs- including all the ones you bought from iTunes for your 'pod. There goes all your pictures- including not just the ones of your kids and your grandkids, and your dog Skippy and your Aunt Louise trying out the waverunner, but the ones of your wife or girlfriend you wouldn't even show your best friend. Gone.

I cannot imagine the level of frustration-and mortification- this must cause some people. It's gotta (a)hurt, and (b) make you feel very stupid. And I haven't even touched on what happens if a business, educational, or governmental worker's laptop gets stolen. Careers get mangled and people lose lots of things, possibly even their lives.

What to do?

Short of never taking your laptop away from your home or office, there are two things you can do. Every laptop owner should invest a couple of hundred bucks in an EHD (External Hard Drive) like a Western Digital My Book (or something else- there are several good ones for sale these days) and periodically make a carbon copy of all their files on the EHD, which should then be stored in some kind of lockbox. If a cretin takes your laptop away you can buy another laptop and simply restore the data off the EHD into said laptop.

The second thing every laptop owner should have and use is a security cable. If you notice, your laptop has a tiny little horizontal slot on the side near the hinge for the screen. That little lock slot, or Kensington slot, is made to attach a security cable to your laptop. There are several security cables out there, but the best I have found is the Targus Defcon CL (PA410U). You can find them online, at Best Buy, and many other places for around 30 bucks, and it may be the best 30 bucks you ever spent on a piece of computer equipment.

Where would you use it? If you are staying in a relatively insecure area like a dorm room, or a motel room, or a hotel room, or even certain guest bedrooms, this will hold it in place. If you take your laptop to the library and nature calls, this protects it while you are momentarily indisposed. Or it may come in handy in an airline terminal or a bus station. In the back seat of your car while you get a coke in the 7-11. In the office of your client. While you are sleeping on the plane. Peace of mind.

How does it work? The cable itself is made of very hard airline-grade steel inside a clear plastic skin. Your laptop is resting on, say, a desk, and you loop the cable around a leg of the table or something else which is relatively permanent. Then you take the "lock" end and move it to the lock slot on the computer. Following the instructions, you create a 4-digit code. You press a little button on the lock and some little metal tabs all swing together in a shape that will fit into the lock slot. Then you put these tabs into the lock slot and release the button. The tabs now spread out so that, when you spin the combination dial, the laptop is locked into place. Simple. Targus provides some little extras to make sure everything fits, but once the lock is in place, it's going to stay there until you want to move the computer.

Here are seven reasons why I like this device:

#1. It provides real security. This lock will probably discourage 99% of all laptop thieves. It is therefore a good deterrent. I say 99% because if a professional thief really wants your laptop he will probably get it, (validating why you should back up your stuff on an EHD) but usually those kind of guys are working for some clandestine governmental agency and they are not interested in stealing your iTunes library, reading your old purple-passion emails, or absconding with the pictures of your dog rolling over on the back porch last summer in the Hamptons. In short, you are probably going to be safe.

#2. It is convenient. This lightweight cable only weighs a few ounces, and fits into some pocket in your laptop case or luggage or even a pants pocket. It is much more convenient that a conventional padlock.

#3. The cable is long enough. I can only imagine the engineers at Targus sitting around debating the appropriate length for the cable. "It needs to be a half-inch longer, Larry!" "No! It's too long as it is...just leave the length thing alone." "But size counts!" "Oh yeah? You'll have people tripping over it and suing us!" Whatever they came up with, it is probably just about right for most people (a six-and-a-half foot cable).

#4. The combination lock Is cool. The main reason why such a lock is cool is that you don't have to remember to bring a key with you, you simply put one of the 10,000 possible numerical combinations into it. Let's say you were born on August 8, 1980. Your combination might be 8-8-80 and since it's your birthday, it would be easy to remember. I have read at least one review where the reviewer claimed that the combo lock was a piece of junk and it messed up. But I've never had the lock do that and I don't think a company like Targus would sell it if there were major defects like that; it would be cost-ineffective.

#5. It is reasonably inexpensive. At least it seems that way to me at $30 a pop.

#6. It has the Targus reputation behind it. This is no tinsel-type piece of crummy engineering art stamped out just to sell to the Gullible Yanks across the Big Pond. Targus is a company which makes many fine products and this is a good example of their craftsmanship.

#7. It may be easily transferred to your other laptop computers. Since all laptops have these little locking slots, you can switch the security lock to all your computers. For once, we are not slaves to proprietaryism. These slots are actually generic to all laptops. Which makes the cable interchangeable with many if not all of the laptops in existence.

The name of the security cable is curious to me: "Defcon." You may know that "Defcon" is the term the military uses when it is expecting a possible attack of nuclear proportions. In a way, maybe this is an appropriate name. If I lost my laptop to a thief, I would go not just ballistic, but nuclear ballistic. Even so, the affects of losing your little expensive dear can be averted or at least softened if you back everything up on an EHD, and if you will purchase a cable like this one from Targus, and remember to use it. Save your dreams, and the work of your life.

5 Stars/ *****