Keep your laptop lassoed and prepare for the worst

Laptops are great RV traveling companions. With these tools we can keep in touch with friends and loved ones, pay bills, locate campgrounds, build a photo album of our trips, and plenty more digital duties. As much as we love our laptops, thieves love them as well, and are intent on grabbing them whenever possible. What can you do to keep them safe – and if they're snatched, how can you recover?
Guard Your Laptop: Don’t leave your laptop in the toad car or the RV in plain sight. Hide it in the trunk, stick it in a closet. If you travel on a plane with your laptop, don’t put it in the overhead storage compartment, keep it with you at your seat–right in front of you.

photo: Yetzt on wikimedia.org

Many laptops have the ability to be "tied down" with a secure cable attached to a special port on the unit. The trick is figuring out where to tie the security cable. It's possible to get a large eyebolt, thread it down into the floor of your rig in say, a closet, and then connect the security cable to the eyebolt. No, it won't prevent a thief from cutting the cable or undoing the eyebolt, but that takes time, and many RV thieves are the "crash and grab" style who don't want to spend a lot of time at the crime scene.

Keep Your Data Safe: If you keep sensitive information on your laptop, make sure if your computer falls into the wrong hands, at least the information is secure. PC users will find the Windows encryption utility will encrypt individual files or folders. Or get after-market software for easier use. Encrypting your datawill make it impossible to read without the encryption code.

When using public WIFI networks, many experts recommend you don’t transmit any sensitive data (including credit numbers or bank account information) but if you must, BE SURE the little “lock” symbol shows on your web browser, and that the URL (address) of the web site begins with https (for “secured”).

Put a Strong Password on Your Laptop: Don’t use your name, your kid’s name, dog’s name, etc., as a password. Repeated numbers or letters are a sure-enough “breakable” password. Some folks use a phrase they can remember, like “My dog has fleas,” and string it together without spaces: Mydoghasfleas is the resulting password. Using symbols (%@&!) in your password makes it much tougher to break. And of course, the longer the better. Afraid you’ll forget it? Then write it down on paper–just keep the paper safe.

Backup Your System: Lost or stolen, your data’s no good if you don’t have it.. Back up frequently, and back up to something OTHER than your computer. Data files might be backed up to a small “thumb drive,” or the whole hard drive to a back up system–find them at Costco or Sam’s Club inexpensively. And keep that backup drive safe too. A lost thumb drive with unencrypted information could be an identity thief’s dream If you have plenty of Internet access bandwidth, you can store your data far away from your location on a "cloud" storage platform.