Comments on: What Happens When Your Laptop Gets Stolen

By: Jaime Brown

Jaime Brown — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:18:31 +0000

Whew! Good thing you got your laptop back and I hope these minors will learn their lesson.

By: Claudio

Claudio — Thu, 26 May 2011 06:54:23 +0000

Leave it to the geeks i suppose thats their strong points, dont mess with them! Good following up work by you though!

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 23:22:40 +0000

WOW – I’m so glad you stayed on top of this, Phil. And, like you, I hope that they can turn their lives around.

By: Susana Valdovinos

Susana Valdovinos — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 04:43:30 +0000

OMG! Derice Utley he is My Ex Boyfriend And dis is not hes frist time.doing something lik this.Gosh Derice.This is very shocking to me.And im glad they caught them because wat he did is stupid.bhut wat eva.and yerp he always on my space and if not facebook.walkin stuff.

By: Molly Buckley

Molly Buckley — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:24:42 +0000

Awesome!! Thanks, Phil!

By: Phil Buckley

Phil Buckley — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:22:42 +0000

@Molly Buckley

Yeah, Dropbox is available for mac, and of course Google Latitude is a web app, but also there are some other cool things available for the mac, some that use the built-in camera to snap photos of the laptop stealer.

By: Molly Buckley

Molly Buckley — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:20:22 +0000

Phil, do you know if these geotagging services are available for mac? I would love to rig my computer up with them, because Lord knows I would die if my laptop was ever stolen.

By: Christine Seib

Christine Seib — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:59:44 +0000

At least living in Durham, you’re not lulled into the false sense of security to the point you would ever go for a walk without locking your doors first. Woohoo, Bull City!

By: Rob McAlister

Rob McAlister — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:17:20 +0000

Lesson for the kids: Don’t steal laptops from a geek.

Lesson for Phil: Move to Durham. It’s more secure. No, just kidding. I guess I should stop leaving the doors unlocked. It’s a bad habit I have that drives my wife crazy. But I never really think that people will steal my stuff.

By: Dennis Walsh

Dennis Walsh — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:08:36 +0000

Phil,
That is great news. Great detective work on your part. Coming up with the different ways to track the laptops under such a stressful and emotional situation is pure genius. This made me realize how technology has not made it to the local police level of law enforcement. It is very scary that you had to educate the police on so many different levels of tech stuff. I would be that is the case at most local police stations around the country, not just in your small town. I guess CenturyTel could care less about helping out with law enforcement, so much for corporate responsibility. I am glad that those parents called the cops to have them come back and didn’t try to cover it up to save “johnny’s” butt.
After you have some time to recover from this and can look at it from all angles, I think you should write an article on the different things people can do to help secure their computers. Not sure what version of Dropbox you are using, but the free version they offer would have accomplished the same thing. There are so many free products out there that could also be used to track, logmein.com is one that comes to mind, as well as paid products like the the Lojack for laptops. I guess maybe you need to write two articles, one for the average home user that is less technical and another article for the geeks that has more geek speak in it. If you do write any articles, please let me know, I would be interested in reading them.
Great idea on the neighborhood web site. Sounds like you have some great neighbors.
Good job and glad to hear you got them both back. So, are they calling you Columbo and have you started wearing a trench coat and smoking cigarettes.
I hope those kids get a “scared straight” experience so they learn a lesson without too high a price.