SheepTech » notebook

Track & Control Stolen Laptop Remotely

Vincent — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:53:18 +0000

Your laptop? $1000. The data in it? Priceless. Even the most casual users will have sensitive data in their laptop to some extend, say, all the passwords you saved in your browser without a master password.

Simply imagine the laptop you are using now falling onto someone’s hand, being ransacked at will. Creepy isn’t it?

Enter Prey, a free tool to track your stolen laptop.

Prey is a small utility with minimal footprints that sits on your computer silently. You won’t be able to find any icons or launchers of Prey after installing, as to make sure the prey is unaware that he’s being watched.

Instead, all options are controlled via the web based panel. You can select some or all of these information to be gathered in your missing device’s report.

Location (via GPS or WiFi triangulation)
Hardware and network status
Webcam image of the thieve
Screenshot
Running programs and modified files
Lock down your PC
etc…

Lifehacker‘s demo video basically summarized everything:

Prey works on Windows, Mac OS, Ubuntu, Linux and Android. You can track up to 3 devices and store up to 10 reports on a free account, which suffice for personal use.

Bought an Asus UL30VT Lightweight Laptop

Vincent — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 04:04:28 +0000

For the past two years, I have been relying on my Dell Inspiron 1720, a 17″ laptop for all my computing needs. Since I have enrolled myself in a flying school last year September, located next to an airport near 2 hours drive away from home, I have been carrying that 4kg monster home and back to my hostel every weekend. To add more strain to my shoulders, I’m also carrying it to my class almost every other day.

I finally got enough of it and decided to get a new lightweight laptop with long battery life and reasonable performance. It makes sense now that I’m subscribed to a wireless broadband, I can basically carry it anywhere I want and get online at any location.

The Asus UL30VT fits perfectly in this category, something I would describe as “a device in between netbook and full fledged laptop“.

Here’s the specs:

1.3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU U7300
2GB DDR3 RAM (upgraded to 4GB)
500GB Hard drive
NVidia G210M Graphics with 512MB DDR3 + Intel GMA 4500MHD (Switchable VGA)
13.3-Inch Widescreen HD LED LCD Display
Wi-Fi 802.11 bgn; Bluetooth; 0.3M Webcam
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Advertised 12 hours battery life with 5600mah battery

I would write a full review a month later, but as an overview, these are my thoughts after several days of usage:

Pros:

Thin and lightweight
Aluminum lid
Long battery life, around 7 to 8 hours at low settings with wireless broadband plugged and quite a number of tabs on Firefox
Chicklet keyboard
Able to overclock via the Turbo33 by ASUS when more processing power is required.
Switchable video card
Able to play 1080p HD videos on YouTube without a glitch when on high performance settings
Doesn’t generate much heat
It’s pretty snappy despite having a low processing power
Plug and play wireless broadband. You are connected once the laptop is started, no need of using your ISP’s dashboard or any other software of that sort.

Cons:

Lid and chassis are fingerprint and smudge magnet. Looks pretty clumsy
Small viewing angle, colors look washed out when view at a an angle

I strongly recommend that you take a closer look at this if you are considering to get a netbook. The UL30VT is just as portable in my opinion, but is definitely way more powerful than a netbook.

BatteryBar: Detailed Information on Laptop’s Battery Life

Vincent — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:29:34 +0000

The default battery indicator on laptops powered by Windows XP, Vista and 7 shows only the most basic information—% of battery juice available, estimated time left before the battery dies off, and charging or plugged in. You are simply out of luck if you want to know more about your laptop’s battery using it.

Whether you are a road warrior who cares much of your battery’s health or is just simply curious about it, check out BatteryBar. It sits beautifully on the taskbar indicating the percentage of battery juice left or time left depending on preference. Hovering it will reveal:

Percent of battery juice left
Capacity of battery – e.g 12,443 mWh of 17,294 mWh
Charged rate – e.g 13,642mW
Battery life left in time – e.g 0:34
Full battery lifetime in time – e.g 1:00
A/C – connected or disconnected
Battery wear – e.g 700% of 57,720 mWh

Connected to AC power supply:

Discharging, disconnected from AC supply

Charging

Accuracy of information

Quoted from BatteryBar’s homepage:

BatteryBar constantly monitors the status of your battery as you use your laptop. As it monitors your battery, it keeps historical data on your battery and provide you with a very accurate estimate of how much time is remaining on your battery.

In short, the longer you have it installed, the more accurate it gets.

What’s cool: The battery wear information is really awesome. With the numbers shown, you can’t deny that you need a laptop battery replacement, or a new laptop even. Of course, unless your wallet disagrees.

What’s not: You see, the default Windows battery indicator won’t warn even if the battery juice hits rock bottom. Neither do BatteryBar, unless you upgrade to BatteryBar Pro ($3 to $10), which would also gives you a couple of extra settings.

P.s: Yes. My battery condition is that bad :/

The World’s Thinnest Notebook

Vincent — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:54:54 +0000

The MacBook Air was unveiled by Apple, Inc Chief Executive, Steve Jobs on Tuesday at the Macworld trade show. The thickest part of the world’s thinnest notebook is 0.76 inches, while the thinnest part of it is just merely 0.16 inches. It can be fitted into a manila envelope just easily, as seen in the ad.

Brief Tech Spec

0.16-0.76 inch thick, 12.8 inches wide and weights at only 3 pounds (1.36 kg)
Intel Core 2 Duo processor at 1.6 Ghz (optional 1.8 Ghz)
80GB hard disk drive
13.3 inches display
5 hours battery life

The $1799 MacBook Air will be available in two weeks time. Watch the MacBook Air Ad and the guided tour after the jump.

MacBook Air Ad

MacBook Air Guided Tour