bitter magnet

Ok, so you can imagine that with this new Macbook I'm pretty paranoid about anyone stealing it. I keep my office door locked at all times, and I put one of those Defcon combo locks on it (that lock itself didn't stop my previous one from getting stolen, but at least it's something). However I still feel that if laptop locks aren't failsafe, and locking your office isn't failsafe (I've heard of at least three different incidents here at MIT where people had their laptops stolen from locked offices) then doing both, although better than either one alone, isn't failsafe either.

So in googling security for MacBooks, I cam across articles that mentioned a new type of software called iAlertU. Basically it functions just as a car alarm does, to protect your Macbook when you're gone for a minute or two (i.e. when you go to pick up a printout, grab a cup of coffee, etc). For a video demo of this alarm in action, check out this site from YouTube. As you can see, with the Apple Remote (all Macbooks come with them) you can enable the alarm and so if anyone tries to type or even pick up your laptop (it uses its built-in motion sensor), the alarm will go off and the screen will start flashing. Also, it even uses the built-in iSight camera to snap and save a photo of the thief!!

Anyways, at this point it seems a bit of a novelty, but still I think it's pretty cool and likely acts as a deterrent to theft. Every little bit helps!!

Note: Most websites that mention this iAlertU software say that it works only for the MacBook Pro. For that reason, I didn't install it initially. But I believe the latest version of the software (0.18b) DOES work on non-pro Macbooks; I just downloaded it on to my 13" Macbook and it works just fine!! And the software is free!! I did make a small donation to the developers via Paypal though, since I think the guys who developed this code should be thanked for spending all this time and effort making this. After all, a donation of $5 or $10 is nothing if it saves your $1,300 laptop from being stolen!

so this past weekend Joe and I were at the Cambridgeside Galleria and I said I wanted to go into the Apple Store. Thing is, after using my iPod nano that I got for Christmas (thanks Joe!) I actually started thinking that maybe Apple products were decent. ;-) Also after my Dell laptop was stolen last month I started browsing around for a possible new replacement and I came across reviews of the new Macbooks, which apparently were reviewed as pretty good and were decently priced as well. So I figured while we were at the mall I could check them out. Well we did, and to make a long story short, Joe bought me a Macbook!! :) It's the 13", white, and has 80 GB of disk space, 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor... woo!!

Anyways, Joe was really surprised that I wanted a Mac, after all for the past 20 years or so (yes, that long!!) I have always been very anti-Mac, and here I am "crossing over to the dark side," as my Dad commented (he still is a pro-PC guy).

But anyways, so far the Macbook is pretty cool, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. It took a lot of getting used to a new operating system and everything, but luckily Joe has a bit more Mac and UNIX experience so he was able to help me out.

So so far I think I've gotten most of my data files transferred, and I still have like 20 GB left. Crazy. It's so weird, my first year of college I bought a brand new desktop from Dell which was 133 MHz and had 850 MB of diskspace for about $2000. My Dad commented "that should be more than enough for whatever you need." LOL.

so last month, my laptop (a Dell Inspiron 700M) was stolen from my office at MIT. 先月、ラップトップが盗まれました。困ったなあ。Yeah, I was pissed because I even had one of those Kensington-type locks on it, but I guess that didn't stop the thief (apparently they just yanked it so hard that they broke the computer case, as evidenced by pieces of laptop case left behind on my desk). Anyway, I was shocked too, especially since it happened on a Monday around 9 am (wasn't the dead of night or anything). But of course I had made the dumb mistake of leaving my door unlocked, since I had just stepped out of the office for 10 minutes (doh!). I guess the laptop lock had given me a false sense of security.

Anyway, it royally sucked and basically I spent the rest of the day on the phone with the MIT Police or the MIT Property office (the laptop wasn't really mine, it was MIT Property, so I needed to file a report). Anyway, in the end the MIT account it was purchased by ended up getting a decent amount of money back from the insurance claim, so at least there was that.

Well soon after the laptop got stolen, I got an old Dell latitude laptop from the Weblab group to use. Initially it worked quite well, but after installing the necessary programs and everything (MS Office, Matlab, Google Desktop, etc), it's been getting a bit cumbersome to use. For instance, the hard drive is only 20 GB, so there isn't enough space for my music files or pictures..I had to put them on a separate drive at home. Also, it's become notably slow (it's a 850 MHz or something) so it takes forever to browse some websites or search for files. And it only had one working USB port (the other is actually broken, I found out), which is USB 1.0 so it takes FOREVER to transfer stuff to a USB drive or to download from a camera. Another thing is that it's quite large and heavy (even without the power supply, I'm guessing about 8 pounds). Sometimes I leave it in the office, since I don't want to break my back lugging it home.


So earlier I was browsing the Dell website to maybe purchase my own laptop as a replacement. However, nothing really jumps out (there are all kinds of sales and such, but when you actually build it up to be a decent machine, it comes out to relatively hefty price). Plus, it'd be a royal bitch to transfer all my files AGAIN and re-install everything.... どうしようかなあ。

# posted by anita @ 3:48 PM