How do I use Prey to help recover a stolen laptop?

Laptops are stolen all of the time. And recovering a stolen laptop is made very difficult when steps have not been taken to help this task get accomplished. Prey is an open source application, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, that can help you out when your laptop is stolen. Prey takes an ingenious approach to laptop recovery; because once it is installed, it will send timed reports to a configured email address containing information describing its whereabouts.

The information collected includes:

> Status of the computer
> List of running programs and active connections
> Detailed network and WI-FI report
> Screenshot of running desktop
> A picture of the thief (if the stolen laptop is equipped with a Webcam)

Of course you are probably thinking this is a lot of information to be sending out, especially since, with this setup, your laptop will be sending out this information even when the laptop isn’t stolen. Ah, but the creators have thought of that as well.

You can configure Prey to only send out the information if it finds a certain Web URL that you created in the event of the laptop being stolen. We’ll address that in a bit. First, let’s look at how to get the program and install it.

Read more about Prey at: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=1543&tag=nl.e064