INCREASE WINDOWS VISTA PERFORMANCE

Windows Vista has some great new security and functionality features, as well as cool eye candy, such as Aero transparency, Flip 3D and other graphical tricks. But all this comes with overhead that may lead to a performance hit on anything less than a top-of-the-line computer. If you find Vista’s performance lagging, the good news is that you can make it run faster. Here are some of the steps you can take.


1. Add more RAM

There’s no denying it: Vista is a RAM-hungry operating system. Whereas XP usually runs great on 512MB, you really need a minimum of 1GB to run Vista acceptably — 2GB is even better. And if you turn on all the graphical features and keep a lot of programs open (especially those that use a lot of memory), then 4GB isn’t overkill.

Luckily, RAM is still relatively inexpensive — but it’s rumoured to be on the rise, so get as much of it as you can, while you can. You won’t regret it.

2. Use ReadyBoost

Can’t add physical RAM? Maybe you have a notebook that already has the maximum amount of memory installed. In that case, Vista provides you with a way to fool your computer into thinking it has more RAM than it does. You can use a flash memory card or USB key as a cache, which Vista can access quicker than data stored on the hard disk.

It’s best to use a high-performance flash card or USB drive for ReadyBoost. When you insert it, Windows will ask if you want to use it to speed up system performance, and then you can allocate how much of the card’s/drive’s memory you want to use for that purpose. The rest can be used for storing data.

3: Get a good video card

If you have enough RAM, the most likely hardware culprit on a slow-moving Vista machine is the video card. You need a fairly high-end card to run Aero at all, but some vendors are selling computers with graphics cards that run it badly. You can find out whether your video card is the bottleneck by checking your Windows Experience Index (WEI) score from the Performance Information and Tools applet in Control Panel.

The onboard video adapters in most systems aren’t powerful enough to run Vista properly. If you want to run Aero and be happy doing it, get a card that’s Vista Premium Certified. As with system RAM, the more video RAM you have the better, and if you want to play Vista games, be sure your card supports DirectX 10.

4: Eliminate extra startup programs

You may find that you have a lot of programs loading automatically when you boot Windows, especially if you bought your Vista system from a hardware vendor who added lots of software. Some of these you may want, such as antivirus or anti-spyware programs, but many of them you probably don’t even use or use only occasionally and don’t want to run all the time. Yet they’re all loading into memory and consuming your system resources — and thus slowing down your computer as they run in the background.

Some programs can be prevented from starting automatically by removing them from the Startup folder. Others are configured in the registry to run at startup. Many can be managed through the Windows Defender Software Explorer, which you can access from the Manage Startup Programs link in the left pane of the Performance Information And Tools applet.

5: Turn off visual enhancements

There are a lot of visual enhancements that make Vista look like Vista, such as the animations when minimising and maximising windows, fading or sliding menus, shadows under the menus and mouse pointer, and thumbnails of graphics files instead of dull icons. However, all this bling consumes resources, and if performance is your priority, the operating system will run faster without them.

The Performance Options dialogue box can be accessed through the Adjust Visual Effects link in the left pane of the Performance Information And Tools applet. On the Visual Effects tab, you can customise these settings individually, turning off the ones you don’t want, to help speed performance. Or you can disable all of the visual effects by clicking the Adjust For Best Performance option.

6: Adjust indexing options

Vista has a much-improved search function, but it’s dependent on indexing the files and programs on your hard disk so they can be found quickly. When the indexing process is running, however, it can slightly slow down other programs you’re try ing to run at the same time.

You can select the locations you want to index; fewer locations will result in less indexing and thus better overall performance. On the other hand, you’ll get better search performance by indexing all locations. You can’t turn the indexing feature off completely, but you can adjust locations indexed by selecting Adjust Indexing Options in the left pane of the Performance Information And Tools applet.

7: Clean up and defrag the disk

Fragmented files or a lot of unneeded extra files on the disk can slow down performance. Vista provides a disk cleanup tool, which you can access from Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools. Specify a drive you want to clean up, and the tool will estimate the amount of space you can recover by running the cleanup process.

Defragmenting the disk rearranges data on it so that all the parts of a file are together; this allows Vista to access those files quicker. The built-in disk defragmenter is also accessed from the System Tools menu. The defragmentation process itself can slow down your computer, so you may want to schedule it to run at a time when you aren’t using the computer. Third-party defrag utilities are also available.

8: Adjust your power settings

If you don’t mind using more power, you can boost performance by setting your power settings to the High Performance option. Click the Power Options applet in Control Panel and select that choice. By default, this configuration is set to Balanced, which limits the CPU to 50 percent power during normal operation.

9: Turn off the sidebar

The sidebar is a cool feature of Vista, but if you don’t use its applets, you can save some resources by disabling it. First, right-click it and select Properties. Next, deselect the check box to start the sidebar when Windows starts. Then, close the sidebar by right-clicking it and selecting Close.

10: If all else fails, turn off Aero

This is a last-resort option for most Vista users — after all, Aero is what makes Vista look like Vista. But if you don’t care for all the eye candy and/or have a low-powered machine, and you still want the functionality advantages of the new OS (search, security, Explorer enhancements and so on), you can definitely speed things up by reverting to the non-transparent look.

To do so, right-click the desktop and select Personalize, then click Windows Color And Appearance. Now, click Open Classic Appearance Properties For More Color Options. From the drop-down list box on the Appearance tab, select any theme except Aero (Windows Vista Basic, Windows Standard or Windows Classic).

Source: http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/

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How to Backup The Windows XP Registry?

Introduction

Registry Editor is an advanced tool for viewing and changing settings in your system registry, which contains information about how your computer runs. Almost the entire settings are stored in the registry. For example, when you resize an application window, the window position (x,y points) is stored in the registry so that the settings are retained permanently. This is just an example, there are much more data stored in the registry, right from your user account names and passwords (if configured to store in the registry).
Although Registry Editor enables you to inspect and modify the registry, it's advisable to use Registry Editor only if the GUI does not provide the option you're looking for. Making incorrect changes in the registry can break your system. It's highly advisable to backup the registry before editing any portion of it.


Backing up the XP Registry - Three methods

Method 1: Using System Restore

One way to backup the registry is to create a System Restore snapshot. System Restore returns your computer to a previous snapshot without losing recent personal information, such as documents, history lists, favorites, or e-mail. It monitors the computer and many applications for changes and creates restore points. You restore these snapshots when your configuration isn't working. This method is unreliable in case you want to rollback the registry changes made a longtime ago, in which case the System Restore might have purged that particular restore point - due to space constraints or due to a recent system restore point or even a Restore point corruption. Please remember, System Restore points get deleted for many reasons, making it unreliable, especially in the long run.
For more help, see : Creating a System Restore point and Using System Restore to Undo Changes if Problems Occur

Method 2: Backing up the selected branch of the registry by exporting (Reliable)

This method is preferred if you're making changes to a specific key/area of the registry. To backup a selected branch/key in the registry, try this:

• Click Start, and then click Run.

• In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK

• Locate and then click the key that contains the value that you want to edit

• On the File menu, click Export.

• In the Save in box, select a location where you want to save the Registration Entries (.reg)

• In the File name box, type a file name, and then click Save.

Now that you've created a Registry backup for that particular key. Save the REG file in a safer location in case you want to undo the registry changes made. You can restore the settings by just double-clicking the REG file. It automatically merges the contents to the Registry.

Method 2 (a) : Export registry keys using a command-line (Console Registry Tool)

You can use the Console Registry Tool for Windows (Reg.exe) to edit the registry. For help with the Reg.exe tool, type reg /? at the Command Prompt, and then click OK.
Example: To export the key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IOLO] and it's sub-keys, try this from Command Prompt:

REG EXPORT HKCU\Software\IOLO C:\IOLO.REG

To view the REG contents type notepad C:\iolo.reg in Start, Run dialog. Console Registry Tool is extremely handy for network admins and also for home users.
Method 3: Backing up the whole registry ("System state")
For backing up the whole registry, use the NTBackup utility to back up the System State. The System State includes the registry, the COM+ Class Registration Database, and your boot files. See section "Back Up the Whole Registry" in the following article:

HOW TO: Back Up, Edit, and Restore the Registry in Windows XP

NOTE: NTBACKUP is not installed by default in Windows XP Home Edition. Install it using the instructions available at: Q302894.

Source: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/
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Reset Lost Windows XP Administrator Password Using ERD Commander

There are plenty of ways to reset or change a lost Administrator password in Windows XP. Methods include using offline password reset tools with live CDs, using the SHIFT + F10 keystroke from Windows XP Setup screen to gain access to the Command Prompt (with full rights) and changing the password. Here is another way to reset or change the lost administrator password in your Windows XP installation.
Note: If you forget the password to a secondary administrator account, you can reset it by logging in to the built-in "Administrator" account easily. This article assumes the following:


1. You have only one working administrator account in the system for which you’ve lost the password.

2. You don’t have a Password Reset Disk

3. You don’t have a Windows XP CD (which will be the case if you have a PC from OEM), or lost your retail Windows XP CD.

Resetting the Windows XP Administrator Password Using Locksmith
ERD Commander is part of the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT) whose 30 day evaluation is available here (MSDaRT50Eval.msi - 64.2 MB). We’ve covered MS DaRT earlier in article Perform a System Restore rollback on a non-bootable Windows XP computer. Follow steps 1-7 in that article to create a ERD Commander Boot CD.
Warning: In Windows XP, the changing of a local user password by an administrator, or through a method other than by the user, will block all access to previously encrypted files (using EFS) by the user.

1. Insert the ERD Commander Boot CD into the drive and restart the system

2. Boot the computer using ERD Commander Boot CD. You may have to set the boot order in the BIOS first.

3. Select your Windows XP installation from the list
















4. From the ERD Commander menu (Start menu), click System Tools and click Locksmith


















5. Click Next












6. Select the administrator account from the list for which you want to reset the password.












7. Type the new password in both the boxes, click Next and click Finish












Source : http://www.winhelponline.com/
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INCREASE WINDOWS XP PERFORMANCE

Microsoft’s Windows XP Professional and Home Editions can be made to perform faster than their default installed configurations by making a few modifications at the user level. Imam Nirwan shows you the steps you need to take to increase Windows XP’s overall performance.

When Microsoft defined the default configuration of Windows XP Professional, assumptions were made regarding how the operating system needed to be set up out of the box for the broadest possible levels of compatibility. In defining a wide breadth of support, Microsoft had to trade off performance fine-tuning for each individual's needs. The good news is that this operating system provides access to many configuration options that you can use to accentuate the performance of Windows XP Professional and Home Editions. The intent of this article is to provide you with pragmatic advice about how to get the highest levels of performance possible from the Windows XP Professional operating system by changing memory management and menu system variables.


This is articles that will define how you can get greater performance from your Windows XP Professional system. Starting with memory management and graphics, this series of articles will progress through processor scheduling, disk usage, and network fine-tuning.

This article covers the guidelines for increasing system performance by doing the following:

1. Optimizing Memory Management
2. Streamlining The Menu System



1. OPTIMIZING MEMORY MANAGEMENT

Like many other operating systems, Windows XP Professional addresses memory from both a physical and virtual level. Physical memory is the amount of random access memory in your workstation, whereas virtual memory is the amount of memory than can be written to your system's hard disk. Integral to the development of the Windows NT operating system, Microsoft has always relied on virtual memory for increasing baseline performance.

The virtual memory paging file, called PAGEFILE.SYS, can be modified in size through a series of steps shown here. For the best possible performance, it's best to have a virtual memory partition on each disk drive. When defining the size of the PAGEFILE.SYS file for each disk drive, it's best to set this file's size at double the physical memory in the system. To optimize physical and virtual memory, follow these series of steps:

Double-click on the System icon in the Control Panel. The System Properties dialog box appears.

1. Click once on the Advanced page tab at the top of the System Properties dialog box. Figure 1 shows this specific page of the dialog box.

2. Figure 1 Configuring your Windows XP system for higher performance using the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box.

3. In the Performance segment of the Advanced page (the first entry on the top of the page), click once on Settings. The Performance Options dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 2.

4. Figure 2: Using the Performance Options dialog box, you can define the virtual memory paging file size.

5. Click once on the Advanced tab of the Performance Options dialog box. Figure 3 shows the contents of the Advanced tab: Processor scheduling, Memory usage, and Virtual memory.

6. Figure 3 The Advanced page of the Performance Options dialog box gives you control over setting virtual memory sizing

7. Notice that at the bottom of the page there is an entry for defining the virtual paging size for your Windows XP system. Click once on the Change button. The Virtual Memory dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 4.

8. Figure 4 Using the options in the Virtual Memory dialog box to define paging file size.

9. The purpose of this dialog box is to define the size of the paging file your system will use. You can, for example, toggle Windows XP Professional to not provide any paging file by selecting the No paging file option (although it will save on disk space, it will inhibit your system's overall performance). The best selection in this area is to select System managed size because Windows XP will calculate the size of the virtual paging file for you. After you select the option you want for this specific option, click once on Set in the Paging file size for selected drive section.

10. Click once on OK to close the Virtual Memory dialog box; then, select OK in the two other dialog boxes until the main desktop is again shown.

11. Reboot your system, and PAGEFILE.SYS will be created. You'll notice that the file appears in the partition as defined in the Virtual Memory dialog box. Your system should now run more efficiently, especially when several concurrent applications are in use at the same time.




2. STREAMLINING THE MENU SYSTEM

Although the navigational aspects of Windows XP Professional have been around since the days of Windows 95, their graphical nature has progressed—they are more extensive in their use of colors and shading, and they drain more system resources. Trimming back the level of graphical representation in your Windows XP desktop can save system resources and boost overall application and network performance.

Follow these steps to get greater performance from your Windows XP system by trimming back the visual effects:

1. Select the System Tool from the Control Panel. The System Properties dialog box appears.

2. Click on the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box.

3. Click once on the Settings button in the Performance section of the dialog box. The Performance Options dialog box is next shown, with the Visual Effects page highlighted by default (see Figure 5). Notice that this dialog box lets you select between four options: Let Windows choose what's best for my computer, Adjust for best appearance, and Adjust for best performance, and Custom. Select Adjust for best performance, and click once on Apply.

Figure 5 Using the Optimizing visual effects performance to streamline the performance of your Windows XP system

Your system will take a few moments to redefine color schemes. The majority of the colors will now be grayscale, yet the performance of your system will be noticeably faster.

4. Click once on OK. Your system is now configured for the highest performance possible from a graphical interface standpoint.

Now if the grayscale is just too bland for you, you can also toggle up the performance of your system by using the following steps:

1. In the Performance Options dialog box, select Options instead of Adjust for best performance.

2. Clear the following options to still retain a colorful appearance to the desktop while getting greater performance:

Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
Fade in taskbar
Fade or slide menus into view
Fade or slide ToolTips into view
Fade out menu items after clicking
Show shadows under menus
Show shadows under mouse pointer
Show translucent selection rectangle
Show window contents while dragging
Slide open combo boxes
Slide taskbar buttons
Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop

3. Click once on Apply and then click OK. Now you have retained the appearance of Windows XP, yet also greatly increased its performance.
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10 way to save phone battery energy

1. If truely you don't require it, better turn off the vibrate. For example when is you reside in the workbench or at home.

2. Don't activate the facility vibrate and ring concurrently because this matter can lost alot of your phone battery energy

3. if you are waiting for SMS or important telephone, better think twice to compile or make the melody manually. Section of this action will spend more battery energy.

4. Don’t play game in phone, if you very need your phone and impossible to recharge battery during near by.

5. Turn off GPRS facility, this matter also make phone use the battery energy redundantly.


6. Don’t excessively turn on or turn off your phone. It’s Section, required energy to look for network again very big. This matter will lessen the time of phone standby among 1-2 hour.

7. If you reside in the difficult area to get signal, better just turn off your phone. Because the phone will continue to try searching the signal, what cause can lost a lot of battery energy.

8. To get the optimal result, better turn off your phone when recharge the battery. Though be in fact there is no prohibition to turn on the phone when recharge.

9. Don’t ever recharge the battery a long of night, because this matter will have an in with battery performance.

10. Turn off the phone is otherwise needed, for example nighttime.
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Make Windows XP boot, FASTER!

1. Eliminate unwanted programs from boot up:
You will find that many of the programs you install on your system set portions of themselves to run automatically when you start up your computer. Each program that runs on startup not only consume system resources but also extends the length of time it takes your PC to fully boot.Since it is generally unnecessary to have any programs running in the background (other than security software like virus-scanners or firewalls) disable your unwanted startup programs to increase your startup speed and conserve system resources.

The easiest way to go about this task is to use the MSCONFIG utility, which may be familiar to users of Windows 9x. This handy program contains a list of software which is set to start when you boot your PC. You can then easily disable and re-enable (if necessary) these items.

Go to ’start\run’ and type ‘msconfig’ to access the utility.

The ’startup’ tab in MSCONFIG provides access to several other applications that are started at boot up and are running in the background. By examining their Filenames and directories, you should be able to get a feeling for what is necessary and what is not.

Be aware than several viruses and worms have a habit of disguising themselves with authoritative sounding Windows system file names, such as the Win32.spybot.worm as MSCONFIG32.EXE. Leave these for now if you are not sure.

The next place you should go is ’start\programs\startup’ which is a directory Windows XP uses to launch application shortcuts on boot-up.

If you remove the shortcuts from this directory, the applications will not load on startup. This directory can also be a repository for various badness such as spyware and virus software, so if there are files here which are not shortcuts and you don’t recognize them, you may wish to consider removing them anyways, as Windows will not place critical files in this directory.


2. Eliminate unwanted fonts to increase boot speed:
The Windows XP control panel contains a ‘fonts’ directory which holds all the fonts currently installed on your system. These can come from Windows itself or from an application such as Word.Windows checks and loads these fonts during the startup process, therefore having a large amount of font files can cause performance to drag during startup. The simple solution for this (if you do not expect to use the majority of these fonts constantly) is to move the unnecessary fonts to a new directory elsewhere on the hard disk, preserving them in case they are needed, but preventing them from loading upon startup.To do this:

Create a new directory called ‘font backup’ or something similar on your C: drive.

Go to ’start\control panel\fonts’ and select all fonts. Drag and drop all the fonts into the backup folder you just created. Things will get garbled for a moment, never fear. Windows XP will automatically re-install the base fonts that it needs to display text into the fonts folder in a second or two.

Now you have the bare minimum of fonts installed. Go through the backup folder and cherry pick the fonts that you are sure to use (like Times New Roman or Arial).

If you removed a large volume of fonts, your system should now boot faster.

3. Turn off BIOS disk detection:
Most modern motherboards will attempt to detect any IDE devices, such as hard drives and CD drives, during the POST sequence each time the computer boots. By configuring the BIOS with the correct drive information, you can shave a few seconds off your boot time by avoiding this detection process.To do this enter your system’s BIOS setup screen.Depending on your motherboard, you may have an IDE drive auto-detection menu. If you do, simply select it to automatically set your drives. If not, configure the drives through the ’standard CMOS settings’ menu.

Note that some motherboard chipsets (like Nvidia’s Nforce 2) do not allow this auto-detection to be disabled.

4. Use the Intel application accelerator:
If your computer has an older Intel chipset (pre-865) you may benefit from downloading and installing the Intel Application Accelerator .This software replaces the Windows XP ATA (hard disk and IDE device) drivers with ones specially designed for Intel chipsets, improving disk performance and boot time.Please make sure that your computer conforms to the system requirements before installing the accelerator.

5. Disable unneeded devices in device manager:
A quick fix that can make XP boot faster is to disable any unused devices in the Windows XP device manager. For example if you have a integrated sound card or video card that you have upgraded, or if you do not use a floppy drive on your system, it pays to disable these devices in device manager.The same goes for extra network cards. Of course, the standard rule of thumb applies here: If you do not know what it is, leave it alone.To disable unneeded devices in device manager:

Right click on ‘my computer’ and select ‘properties.’ From the ‘hardware’ tab, select ‘device manager.’ Expand the various categories to locate unused devices. Right click the devices and select ‘disable.’

6. Disable auto detection for empty IDE slots:
Another quick trick for a faster boot up is to disable the auto detection that Windows XP uses to determine if there are IDE devices present in any of the IDE slots on the motherboard. More specifically, disable this feature on any empty slots to prevent the operating system wasting time and resources checking them.Right click on ‘my computer’ and select ‘properties.’ Go to the ‘hardware’ tab and select ‘device manager’ to open the device management window.Expand ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers’ and highlight the ‘primary IDE channel.’ Right click the highlighted entry and select ‘properties.’ Go to the ‘advanced settings’ tab.

If either IDE slot on the controller is empty, the ‘device type’ dropdown box will be not grayed out. Set it to ‘none’ to disable auto detection of IDE devices on that particular slot.

Repeat the above steps for the ’secondary IDE controller.’

Note that if you wish to add a new IDE device, you will have to reset the ‘device type’ setting to ‘autodetect’ in order for Windows to use the new drive.

7. Reduce wait time after XP boots:
A common performance problem with Windows XP is ’start lag,’ in which the operating system boots up normally, the desktop is visible and usable, but programs will not start, and selecting icons and using the start menu are extremely slow. This can take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes to clear up, and can make using the operating system extremely frustrating, especially if you are in a hurry after the reboot.This delay is generally caused by Windows XP’s networking services looking for other computers and advertising their functions over the computer’s network connections.

If this problem is driving you nuts, there is a way to reduce or eliminate the delay, though if you are attached to a home network, it will reduce your computer’s functionality on that network.

8. If your computer is not attached to a home network:

Right click on ‘my computer’ and select ‘manage.’
Expand ’services and applications’ and select ’services’ to open the services window.
Highlight the ‘workstation’ service, right click and select ‘properties.’ Set the ’startup type’ dropdown box to ‘disabled.’ Click ‘ok.’

Note that you will need to re-enable the workstation service should you wish to network your PC in the future.

9. If your computer is part of a home network:

Go to ’start\control panel\network and internet connections\network connections.’

Right click your current network connection (should be ‘local area connection’ unless you have more than one network adaptor) and select ‘properties.’

Uncheck the ‘File and Print Sharing’ box and press ‘ok.’

Note that this will disable your computer’s ability to share files and printers over the network, though it should not affect your ability to access such resources on another system.
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How to secure/hide folders on personal computer?

Today tip is very helpful to hide and secure your personal data from other users, particularly on home computer. Just imagine if multiple users are using the same computer at home or in office environment then there is no any 100% secure method to protect your personal files. You may be used any third party tools to protect your folders but it is not recommended by Microsoft to use such kinds of tools. Using built-in windows (XP, 2003, Vista) Attrib commands option, you can change the attributes of a folder (Read only, Hidden and System attributes) and safe your data.

Follow the given steps to edit the folders attributes to secure your data:

To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

Now create a folder that you want to hide on any computer drive. (For example, you have created a folder on D drive with the name Data)

First click on Start button and type CMD in Run box then press Ok button to display the windows command prompt.

Now type the command "attrib +s +h D:\Data" without quotation marks and press Enter button to execute it.

This command will hide your "Data" folder from D drive and now you can verify it.

Any one cannot unhide this folder using windows "Show hidden files and folders" option also.

When you want to unhide this folder, again open command prompt and type the command "attrib -s -h D:\Data" and press Enter button. If you want to hide files then simply move all these files to this "Data" folder.

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Laptop Security

Laptop Security
laptop security.
Laptop theft is rampant. You have a 1 in 10 chance your shiny new laptop will be stolen. And the real shocker: according to the FBI 97% are never recovered.
And they should know, the U.S. Department of Justice stated in a recent report that the FBI lost 160 laptops in a 44 month period ending in September of 2005. If FBI agents have trouble keeping track of their laptops, imagine what the ordinary person is facing.

The statistics are pretty grim. A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds. Ouch!
With stats like those you have to do everything in your power to avoid becoming a victim of laptop theft. If you keep valuable personal or business information on your laptop the consequences can be even more gruesome and devastating. For laptop hardware can be easily replaced, but your valuable information may be lost forever.
So here are...
10 Practical Ways of your Your Laptop security Against Theft, Loss or Misplacement.
1. Keep Your Eyes On Your Laptop for laptop security
Be aware of your laptop at all times especially when traveling. You wouldn't leave a Thousand Dollar Bill lying around unattended would you? So watch your laptop closely.
2. Don't Use An Obvious Laptop Bag for laptop security
Carry your laptop in regular luggage that doesn't look like it has a laptop. Don't advertise your laptop to any would-be thieves.
3. Use Visual Locks And Restraints for laptop security
Use visual locks and restraints to secure your laptop and to act as a deterrent. It won't fool hardened thieves but most will opt for a less secure laptop. For example, you can use a product like STOP, this system works by attaching a specially-made security plate to your laptop. This plate is barcoded and registered. It also carries a warning label letting would-be cyber thieves know that the ownership of your laptop is permanently monitored.
4. Use Passwords And Encryption for your laptop security
Use passwords and encryption to protect any sensitive information on your laptop. Again, unless you use very sophisticated encryption it won't fool the experienced hacker or hard-core digital thief but it will slow down and hinder the common criminal.
Set a BIOS Password for your laptop. You have to take advantage of any security option that's on your laptop's OS or operating system. For those using Mac OS X you can encrypt your entire hard drive and set-up a master password in order to view it.
Windows XP & Vista lets you encrypt files and folders. Just right click your data, select properties, open general tab and then advanced to check "Encrypt contents to secure data box".
5. Use Encryption Programs Like Steganos Safe 2007 for laptop security
You can also try something like Steganos Safe 2007. Vital files can be encrypted and it can even turn your USB thumb drive or iPod into a key for unlocking your hard drive.
6. Use Anti-Theft Software Like LoJack for laptop security
Use anti-theft software that can track and locate your laptop or computer through the IP address once the stolen laptop is used to access the Internet. Use systems like "LoJack For Laptops". It costs Costs around 50 bucks a year but it may be worth that price for your peace of mind alone.
According to the info on their site they recover 3 out of 4 stolen laptops equipped with the LoJack system. It basically places hidden and silent software that reports back the IP address and location of the laptop once it is stolen and the thief connects to the Internet.
7. Use Invisible Ultraviolet Markings for laptop security
Use invisible ultraviolet markings so that any recovered stolen laptops will be clearly marked as yours to the police. Keeping track of your laptop's serial number is also a good idea and have this number stored in a different place other than on your laptop.
8. Try Remote Data Deletion for laptop security
If you place important information on your laptop have a remotely controlled self-destruct solution in place. Then your highly sensitive information can be deleted remotely after your laptop is stolen.
9. Be Prepared for laptop security
Create company policies for management of your company's laptops. Have set procedures in place for tracking and reporting of any laptops stolen or misplaced. Be prepared for the inevitable.
10. Backup Backup Backup for laptop security
Regularly backup any vital information you have on your laptop. Most information will be useless to potential thieves but may be extremely important to you personally or for the running of your business.
No matter if it is through theft or simple misplacement, losing a laptop is a painful experience, one you should avoid at all costs. However, if it does happen to you, be assured you can minimize the pain by having a complete backup of your laptop's contents. In most cases, this information will be much more valuable than the laptop itself.
For hardware can be easily replaced, your personal data and months/years of work may take forever to recover or redo. Sometimes it is lost forever, so BACKUP your information regularly. Keep your laptop and its contents safe and out of harm's way. Simply protect yourself and your laptop security by using the tips you have just read.
laptop security.

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