How to Keep your Laptop Safe from Theft

Tiffany Young: Hi there and welcome to NeoFight.TV, the technology review with two points of view. My name is Tiffany Young. Ben Freedman: And I’m Ben Freedman. And it’s Friday. Tiffany Young: Yeah, okay September 15th. Ben Freedman: 15th, September 15th. Tiffany Young: 15th right? Ben Freedman: September 15th. Tiffany Young: Yeah, today is 15th, all day long. Ben Freedman: Yes. Tiffany Young: And Friday is the day that? Ben Freedman: We respond to viewer email. So, if you have a question that you would like to send to us, go ahead and what is our email address? I think it’s questions@neofight.tv. Tiffany Young: We’ll put it up. Ben Freedman: We have a website. Click on questions. Tiffany Young: Right, right, right. Ben Freedman: Our first question today is, “What’s the best way to keep my gear safe from theft when I travel?” And of course these are all the usual things, you know, you want to—first is if you’re renting a car, lock your computer in the trunk, you know, all those sort of things. Tiffany Young: All the normal steps as long as you’re not in Arizona, it’s a 120 degrees out, right. Ben Freedman: Well, that’s true because in Arizona, what do you do? You put in the trunk, it’s going to overheat. Tiffany Young: Yeah, it’s going to be bad deal, bad deal or in Alaska, it will freeze. Ben Freedman: Or in Alaska, it will freeze. Tiffany Young: Weather permitting, put it in your trunk. Ben Freedman: That’s right. A lot of people use the cables to lock their computers up. And all these laptops they have that little port in them where you can put it in the cable but I have never used this before because the ones with a little cylinder keys that, you know, circle keys, you know you can open those with a big pen. I mean they are very, very easy to pick. They’re very insecure but I found this on the website and my faith in these locks have been restored. This is a computer lock from a company called Compu-Lock. And it works pretty much the same way. You take this and you wrap it around, you know, the leg of your table, the leg is something that’s impossible to move and then you plug this into— Tiffany Young: They’re harder to move. Ben Freedman: Hard to move than your computer obviously. Tiffany Young: Do you drain pipes? Ben Freedman: Yeah, exactly. Tiffany Young: Something, a permanent fixture to your house. Ben Freedman: Exactly, something difficult to steal, obviously like a leg of the table or something that somebody can’t just walk up with. Stick this in the side of your computer and then you turn it to lock it obviously. And the nice thing about this is, this key, take a look at how complicated that key is. Tiffany Young: Yeah, cool. Ben Freedman: Very, very, very hard to pick these locks. You’re not going to be picking this with a big pen or a credit card, rolled up credit card. Tiffany Young: Absolutely not! This is actually like a real key. Ben Freedman: Yeah, it’s a real key. Tiffany Young: Yeah. Ben Freedman: And, so this is not something that’s easily you’d be able to pick because I’ve heard the people with those big pens, with those credit cards or rolled up business card, you can stick in these little cylinder, the bicycle type of locks. Tiffany Young: Gosh, what a waste of money. You wasted money on a lock and it doesn’t even, you know, work. Ben Freedman: It doesn’t even work and— Tiffany Young: It’s easier with the big pen. Ben Freedman: The other thing is that you can also adjust on this lock how deep into the computer these pins go. Now, why that’s important is, some of these come with long pins. And if they don’t fit all the way in the computer, this little gap, you can stick a screw driver in there and go and it will pop this right out. With this, there’s an adjustment on this ring here. You can adjust how deep they go in so that when you put it in, it’s really, it’s really butted right up against the computer. Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: So, this is Compu-Lock, much, much safer I think than some of the other brands out there. Tiffany Young: Good deal. That’s a really good question. That’s good to know. I mean, I definitely want to take a look at that for our company. I mean, I never— Ben Freedman: Do you use a lot of laptops? Tiffany Young: We do and I’m so worried about, we got broken into a few years ago and had everything, you know, taken. So, I’ve been having everybody take their laptops home with them which is kind of paining them. Ben Freedman: Compu-Lock, Tiffany will be calling. Tiffany Young: Absolutely. I’ll be ordering probably 10, so great question. The next question we have is, “I have USB cables all over my desk. What do you recommend to help me get organized?” Ben Freedman: You need to get married. Tiffany Young: Huh? Ben Freedman: Get a wife. Tiffany Young: You think a wife have to get organized? I’m sure my husband did. He threw my stuff out. Ben Freedman: My wife demands that I get organized. She will not allow me to have those zillions of cables because we have a computer in our living room that she uses and the kids use for a lot of stuff and cables everywhere, so I’m out there with little twist ties and the wraps and it’s really a pain. Tiffany Young: I know, it is a pain. Ben Freedman: You put one in with a twist tire or one of those tie wraps. And then when you go to remove that cable, you got to be back there with the wire cutters trying to cut it up. Tiffany Young: It’s always too long or too short or it’s not like a Little Miss Muffet. Ben Freedman: If only there were a better solution. Tiffany Young: It is. My point it’s just not right. Ben Freedman: If only there were some better way of what the heck? Tiffany Young: No, no. Little Miss Muffet, you know, I mean what’s that, “My porridge is too hot. No it’s too cold.” The three bears. Ben Freedman: And this has to do with USB cables, what? Tiffany Young: My only point was I was just saying that it’s just not right until now. Ben Freedman: Okay. Tiffany Young: Right now, we have the Cable House. Ben Freedman: It’s called the Cable House. Tiffany Young: Right. And these are—look, they are like a hard plastic little housings for your cables, USB, phone, you know, whatever cables, you know, Ben Freedman: And how does it work Tiff? Tiffany Young: It’s really, really cool, Ben. I’m glad you asked. First, you take your cable, very simple, very basic. And you just see you just wrap it up in here. Ben Freedman: You just wind it around. Tiffany Young: Wind it around, until you get to exactly where— Ben Freedman: Whatever left you want. Tiffany Young: Thank you Ben. Perfect, absolutely! Why do I speak? Here we go. So, here we go. Ben Freedman: Shutting up now. You can tell it’s Friday, can’t you? We need to get away from each other for a couple of days. Tiffany Young: I said, I said, I said, yeah. Ben Freedman: A couple of days apart, I think. Tiffany Young: Anyway, yeah I think that time off would do, you’re good Ben. Yes. Check that out. Now, that’s a wonderful invention I think. Ben Freedman: And what if you need it a little longer again? Tiffany Young: Well, I’m glad you asked Ben. All you do is you unwind it. Ben Freedman: Perfect. Tiffany Young: There you go. Ben Freedman: That’s great! I got to admit that’s a neat little product. Tiffany Young: It’s a great product and that’s not a good question so thanks for asking. Ben Freedman: Yeah and these come like in packs of four. I think you can get them like cyber guys and on all of the online— Tiffany Young: We’ll put up a couple of links to— Ben Freedman: Yeah, I think I’ll put it for the cyber guys. Tiffany Young: Where would you get them at? Ben Freedman: This one place called “extreme geeks”. Tiffany Young: This is really cool. Ben Freedman: Yeah. Tiffany Young: Good work, good work. Ben Freedman: And that’s all the time that we have for Neofight.TV this week. If you get a chance, go visit our website at www.neo-fight.tv. That’s where you can subscribe to the show, subscribe to the iTunes or any of your podcasting aggregator programs. And we’ll see you here on Monday. Tiffany Young: And keep those questions coming. We really, really love those email questions, and I mean I really get informed too by having Ben answer some of the questions. And even if we don’t know it, we’ll figure it out. Ben Freedman: We will and— Tiffany Young: One way or another or make it up, just kidding. Ben Freedman: That’s all the time we have for this week but if you have an extra 30 seconds, take a look at this. 24HourStaff.com’s affordable cutting edge technology allows you to get customers and deliver truly remarkable customer service 24 hours a day. Male: Our advice is simple. You have 24 hours a day to grow your business. Act like it. Female: Call systems, messaging, operator, faxing, your own toll-free number. Male: So, go 24/7 and use our affordable technology to grow your business. Female: 24HourStaff.com.