Laptop Theft – Analysis

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Statistics

*A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds in the USA – Symantec
*Over 600,000 laptops are stolen each year in the USA – Safeware Insurance Agency
*97% of these laptops are never recovered – FBI
*The second most common crime, just after identity theft, is laptop theft – FBI
*Lost or stolen laptops are the top culprit of data leaks/breaches, accounting for 45% (of all the incidents studied) – The Identity Theft Resource Center
*Laptops are the number-one item stolen in San Francisco – San Francisco Police Department

The Fear of Theft

As laptops become more common, the laptop theft rate is also rising at an alarming pace. Laptops are a favorite item among thieves due to the ease in which they can be transported and resold.
*Portability and complacency make laptops an easy steal – Montreal Mirror, October 5, 2006
*Laptops have legs. You need to keep them chained (even at home) – Safety tip from a personal blog

Where Laptops are Stolen – Locations

Nowadays people take their laptops with them everywhere. In addition to work, school and travel, the proliferation of wireless internet hot zones have people bringing laptops out in the street, using them in public cafes.
*Police say normally quiet cafes are becoming hunting grounds for laptop bandits – San Francisco Chronicle, April 8, 2006
*”Where else do you have a thousand-dollar item sitting on a table in a coffee shop?” – San Francisco Chronicle, April 8, 2006
*University campuses are turning out to be a crook’s best friend. Jacques Lachance, a security investigator at Concordia University, estimates that one laptop a week is stolen at the University. – Montreal Mirror, October 5, 2006
*Thieves are also making a killing stealing laptops from cars. According to the Montreal Police Service, 3,928 portable computers were stolen from vehicles last year, up from 2,870 reported thefts the year before. “Sometimes students will lock their laptop in their car but it’s still visible,” Lachance says. “Or they’ll think it’s secure in the trunk, but people watch them go to their car, and later they’ll just break through the trunk.” – Montreal Mirror, October 5, 2006
*Many airports are full of professional thieves who make a living from stealing laptops and selling the content of the hard drive to the highest bidder. – Traveling Light, The Entourage Help Page

Aftermath

Once your laptop is stolen, the likelihood of recovering anything from your loss is quite slim. Losing your laptop is devastating and quite costly when you consider the priceless photos, files and personal information you have stored, in addition to the expensive hardware.
*There is nothing that can prepare you for the feeling of loss and the dread that comes with knowing that your personal data is gone forever. While it is very inconvenient and can be very expensive to replace the laptop itself, NOTHING can replace the hours of hard work that is stored on your computer. – The UK Web Design Company
*”Three months after I lost my laptop and started rebuilding my files, I still have only one third of my data recovered,” says Ms. Gilbert. “It will be at least six months before I will reach full productivity, and I’ll never have everything back”. She lost sleep and spent countless anxious weeks worrying about client information and how she was going to stay on top of her projects. “I never want to go through it again,” says Gilbert. – Lessons in Data Loss: A Case Study, Data Deposit Box
*For personal computer users there are mp3 playlists, emails, personal photo albums, and other important files. For the professional computer user, the stakes are higher…perhaps it’s the accounting data for your company’s 3rd quarter earnings, the PowerPoint presentation you will be giving to the CEO on Thursday afternoon, or the proposal that needs to be sent to the European office A.S.A.P. There are some real horror stories about the financial impact to a corporation of having its entire five-year marketing plan stolen along with someone’s laptop. – The UK Web Design Company
*Dr Chetan Ruprai, 28, a specialist registrar in the maternity ward at York Hospital, is desperate to get her laptop back. The machine contains three years worth of painstaking medical research which cannot be replaced and is vital to her career. “This is very distressing and I will do anything to get it back” she said. – The Press, January 27, 2007
*I was out the cost of the laptop plus I had to redo 3 websites I built. Backups were stolen too. The theft of my laptop cost me thousands. – Personal blog post
*Of course I filed a police report, but I’ve already said goodbye to years and years worth of memories. Photos, videos, documents… some (very few) of which were backed up but most are now in the hands of a thief. – Personal blog post

Besides storing all your invaluable data, laptops also serve as an extremely important work, communication and entertainment tool. In our computer dependent society, it’s not surprising that victims of laptop theft often feel an immense sense of loss and anguish.
*Losing a laptop is a traumatic experience… I know it was a total disaster for me. All my email was gone, my photos from the Russia/Ukraine holiday, the new OKS features I wrote on the plane coming here, and so on. Of course, I was left without my slides for my meeting the next day, and with no laptop to conduct my course Wednesday-Friday. – Personal blog post
*After my laptop was stolen, I definitely had a good cry. There’s a feeling of depression perhaps and certainly futility. I miss the first computer that was truly mine. I liked that laptop! I’m missing my pictures and notes. I’m missing the Mac software I had figured out how to use. Without a computer, I can’t send email or blog. I can’t watch videos. Having my laptop stolen affected my lifestyle, my community, my mental and emotional wellbeing. I was mad that my family and I had to pay the price for someone else’s actions with both time and money… – Personal blog post
*You can steal my car, my money, my shoes, I don’t really care, but don’t steal my damn laptop! – Personal blog post
*Oh I had insurance. Insurance doesn’t cover weeks of modeling time done on my laptop, or a sketchbook nearly filled with drawings or notes. So as all the other architecture students are looking forward to a break from the studio, a time to spend with family at the dinner table enjoying Thanksgiving and in front of the TV enjoying football and beer, I look forward to 100 hours in front of a drafting table and a laptop borrowed from the school, drafting and CADing to my hearts content. Why me? Why now? What did I do to deserve this? – Personal blog post
*I’m a graduate Professional Writing student at USC. I write fiction, nonfiction and screenplays. As a result of the theft of my laptop, I lost some pieces I had written, I had to buy a new laptop, and I was pained emotionally because of the incident. I felt, and still feel very wronged, and taken. It makes me sick to know someone has my laptop with my personal files. – Personal blog post
*It was like you cut off my arm. I had my whole life on my laptop. Two novels, years of photos, work files, and more. Since I’m a full-time volunteer these days, I have no money to buy a new computer. – Personal blog post
*As I slept, someone entered the house and stole my laptop, backpack, wallet, cell phone, and iPod. All while I slept. My life revolves around that laptop and the loss is monumental to me. – Personal blog post
*Fortunately, whoever entered my abode and took my possessions didn’t kill or maim me. But the loss of my LIFE, which was entirely wrapped up in that laptop, is almost too much for me to bear. All day I’ve been making phone calls, leaning on good friends for support, and changing what passcodes I can in an attempt to thwart the upcoming identity theft, or whatever else the thief decides to do with my personal information. – Personal blog post

Small businesses might have the most to lose when a laptop goes missing. The loss of vital data such as client information, accounting records or business plans could all spell disaster for a small business.

*The day my laptop was stolen almost killed my business. The laptop can be replaced. However the loss of critical DATA was the biggest risk my business has ever faced. – The UK Web Design Company
*Users today store more mission-critical data than ever before, so a lost laptop is a huge issue for a small business owner. In total, 7 out of 10 small businesses go bankrupt within a year of experiencing a major data loss. – Lessons in Data Loss: A Case Study, Data Deposit Box

As seen in the news recently, even large companies such as Boeing and Fidelity are not immune to theft. Both have had laptops stolen from employees that contained very critical data pertaining to hundreds of thousands of people, putting these innocent victims at risk for identity theft, credit card fraud and a slew of other dangers.
*”2006: The Year of the Stolen Laptop” – Forbes, September 7, 2006
*Boeing disclosed that files containing Social Security numbers, names and home addresses of 382,000 current and former employees were compromised when an unencrypted laptop was stolen from an employee’s car. – MSNBC, December 13, 2006
*The University of California, Berkeley, is warning more than 98,000 people that the theft of a laptop from its graduate school admissions office has exposed their personal information. Files on the laptop contained names, dates of birth, addresses and Social Security numbers of 98,369 graduate students or graduate-school applicants. The files go back three decades in some cases. – CNN, March 28, 2005
*Financial services giant Fidelity Investments confirmed that a laptop containing the personal information of almost 200,000 Hewlett-Packard employees was stolen from its property. – CNN, March 23, 2006
*Georgia-based Emory Healthcare reports that a laptop containing information on 38,000 of its patients was stolen. The missing laptop contained information on patients who had been treated for cancer at Emory Hospital, Emory Crawford Long Hospital, and Grady Memorial Hospital. The data included names, addresses and Social Security numbers.
The theft of patients’ medical records is a growing concern, particularly as these records can be used to engage in “medical identity theft”. Thieves can use stolen identities not only to obtain credit and loans, but to get expensive medical procedures that they might not have otherwise been able to afford, running up thousands in debt in the process.
Patients who have been hit with medical identity theft can find their insurance premiums skyrocketing, and can face large medical bills for procedures they never had. – ConsumerAffairs.com, January 8, 2006

Without a doubt laptop theft is a real concern, but you can minimise the risk by using one of the secure laptop bags with built-in anti-theft features that are available from Pacsafe. They have models available for both men and women, if you are concerned about the risk of your laptop being stolen then take a look at the MetroSafe 300 Secure Laptop Case.

You Must Know The Design Factors Before You Outsource To Web Design India

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In todays world of cut throat competition, your web design is by far the most important factor. And if you do decide to get the website designed by outsourcing to India, here are some of the important factors you should be looking for. To be precise, let us list a few things you should be looking for when you decide to outsource your tasks to Web Design India.

Check whether the various design factors are appropriately met. Ask for a prototype. Well, its important that you know the various aspects of a web design before you decide to outsource it to Web design India

Navigation Menu: The most important aspect of a website is its usability to visitors. Well, when it is easy to traverse your website, it is more likely that they will stay. For traversing your website the navigation menu is the most important. Complicating the design on the navigation menu gives the visitor a reason to leave. So, ensure that your web design consists of a simple, easy to understand navigation bar and navigation menu.

Title is important: The title of your web page should be exactly what your web page is about. It should be the first thing the visitor looks at. And it should also reflect the content of your page. Well, design it such that it attracts attention and sends out a clear message.

Contact Page: Contact page design is as important as any other page. Many designers tend to ignore this. Well, thats where most of your advertising is redirected (at some stage or the other). So make sure the layout is good and the phone number is not lost amongst some creative graphic or flash. Same with the address. Keep it simple. Do not bother to decorate it. It should be in a clear font and easily readable.

Flash: Using flash is something that can make or break your website. With too much of it, you are at a risk of spoiling the overall appeal to the website visitor. You website is still better off without it. But if you have to, use it sparingly and wisely. Cluttering too much animation on your page can take the charm of a professional web design away.

Graphic to text ratio: This is another important factor that you must know about. Simply put, it is the ratio of the amount of graphics on your page and the amount of text on your page. With too much text your web design looks boring. With too much graphics visitors find no value and no information.

Well, now that you know all the factors you need to consider in a web design, selecting a web design India Company should be very easy. The ultimate aim is that the web design India company gives your website the perfect look and you know that the techniques and design factors that they used are the ones that are beneficial for your online business.

Web Design Company India

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Web Design Company India
Technology is advancing so is the need of it. Not only single individuals are using it but also many business organizations have started working with modern technology schemes. Today, people make the most use of Internet to search any information regarding any products or services. Thus, it has become mandatory for all the business organization to have a web site that can provide all the information that is required by a customer. Web design is the skill of creating a good presentation of the content of website to attract the readers. However, the content of the website should also be useful and informative. Thus we can say that it is not only a creative process but also an intellectual process since it needs a lot of hard work to prepare a unique web site for the clients.
Internet is the perfect medium to advertise your products worldwide. With the help of this medium, business organizations are able to reduce their marketing costs as well as reach the world in a much lesser time comparative to other marketing options. Web Design Company India is professionally providing web designing services to all. With the help of these services, business organizations are helped by the professionals to create some attractive websites thereby enabling them to attract more and more customer to grow their business. These professionals create the websites with some interactive features to gain customer interest. The website of any business organization should be simple as well as user friendly. It should give all the detailed information that any customer needs. Web designing is becoming mandatory for the business organizations nowadays. A website should be customer oriented and show visually the different features of the business enterprise. Website is the best medium for any business as it provides full detail to customers as per their requirements. Website consists of a proper content, style, pictures and hyperlinks to explain every concerned detail in an appropriate manner. Web designing is basically custom-based and template based. Custom based web designing reflects the goal, aim and tastes of the organization. The organizations can choose from the graphical interface and the different color scheme offered by the designing companies. Whereas Template based web designing is about the layouts, purchase and approval of the website.
Website is a medium by which the information of these products reaches the potential buyers. Thus, your website should be attractive and informative in order to attract more and more people. This can be easily done with the help of Custom web designing. It properly balances the content and pictures on the website to attract a large number of customers. As competition is increasing, it becomes imperative for every business organization to advertise in the right manner to boost their online sales.
Custom web design plays an important role in the success history of a web site. Each web page in a site is an HTML file having its own URL. A web site is similar to traditional print publishing as it is also a container of information just like a book. With the help of Web design India it has become easier for the business organization to be get recognized by the people all over the world. Every organization works with an aim of being recognized globally. With the help of above facility, it becomes easier for a business organization to get recognition from local customers as well as overseas customers.

Reno Web Design Firms

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In today’s time-crunched world, most people literally don’t have a minute to spare. This hurried pace extends to the realm of website design — your professional Web design must satisfy the demands of users with a wide range of options for viewing the Web.
Even if you create a website design that’s worth a wait, visitors faced with slow download speed aren’t likely to stick around. So how can you make sure that time is on your side? Pay close attention to seven professional Web design tips to create a website that won’t slow your business down.
Clean up your code
While HTML text is much faster than graphic text, there are ways you can make it even faster. Watch out for extraneous HTML coding like spaces, unnecessary tags and even white space — that can increase the size of your files. Remember that less is more, and use defaults for tags or remove them wherever possible.
Compress your images
Images are a great example of how looks can be deceiving in professional Web design. You might not realize just how much space they occupy when you create a website design. By compressing your images before adding them to your professional Web design, you can reduce/shrink a GIF or .JPEG image by up to half its original size. You may also want to specify the height and weight of your images in your HTML, which can decrease loading time.
Pay attention to page size
Even if you use all of the tips above, your page size may still be big enough to cause a slow response when all the pieces of your website are put together. Remember that less is often more in professional Web design, and use only the content that is absolutely necessary. Ideal page size is around 30KB.
Use thumbnails
Thumbnails are an especially helpful website design technique for ecommerce websites. Provide customers with a small, fast-loading image of your product and let them decide whether they want to view the larger version of the image.
Limit use of flash
Flash is a classic example of style over substance and, while it definitely has its place in professional Web design, it must be used sparingly when you create a website. Even if your visitors have the right flash player (and many won’t), it will increase your site’s download time. Flash is also one of the Web site design elements that is not yet accessible to search engines, which means it can only hinder your search engine optimization efforts.
Reduce server requests
Any element of your design that loads from a different server whether it be a graphic, an audio clip, or an ad will elicit an HTTP request each time the page loads. Create a website with limited external content to reduce loading time.
Switch to CSS
Many Web designers now use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) instead of the more traditional table layout. CSS is a styling language that has a dual purpose in professional Web design: it can save you time when you create a website and save your visitors time by drastically reducing page size and download time.
When you create a website design for your business, go the extra mile to ensure your website has the speed your visitors need — or risk getting passed by.

Web design is dead!

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Before people become too incredulous with this statement this author believes no. Web design is not dead, neither are the firms who are offering such services dead. It was something I heard recently with regard to the proliferation of blog publishing systems and with many sites offering free templates.With the apparent availability of a cheap instant web presence, is there is any need for anyone to sit down any more and learn how to create a website from scratch and all the programming and design skills that this demands, and subsequently for any business to invest in the people who offer that service? Well obviously this statement is something of an insult to all the talented designers and programmers out there, and the million of students investing time into learning these skills, and fortunately the statements are wide of the mark. Businesses do want to hire web design companies, and personally I think it’s in their interests to do so. The purpose of this article is not to simply knock creators of templates, as they are designers themselves – it is simply to suggest that there is sometimes there is an alternative, that will pay dividends in the long run.

Businesses want to cut corners, the market is tough globally – when faced with the choice of spending $5,000 on a site and less than a $100.00 for some businesses it is an easy choice. There are millions of ready to go websites out there, some are stunning, some are quite frankly not. Some are dated, some are not. But my advice to any business would be not to dive into the ‘cheap end’ immediately.

Having a professional web design company design a bespoke website will enhance your brand, it isn’t a necessarily a question of avoiding duplication, i.e risking choosing a cheap template another company is using, it’s about starting your own perception of your business on a strong footing, giving you the confidence in your brand from the outset. A professional web design company will be able to work with you from the ground up to achieve a brand you can be proud of. If you work with a committed web design team from the start they can grow with your company, understand your goals and react to your changing business goals. In that sense they become a valued extra member of your team.

It’s understandable why many businesses strive to cut costs, especially start-up businesses, but in today’s crowded markets and where your on-line presence has become critical, it’s worth listing your web presence on your list of costs as high as your office IT requirements.