here's a million AUD idea
rjo_
Posts: 1,825
AUD is an official designation for the Australian Dollar
The history is that I inherited a Dell notebook from my daughter, with a broken screen and a screwed up system. I got it all fixed up and was using it for my Prop work. I turned my back and it disappeared.
I've just spent the last week getting my Dell back... I ended up meeting the "fence" in a parking lot in the middle of the night. I felt like I was in a very bad movie. And it cost me $150 to get back my own computer... without causing innocent people to be accused of theft, which is what would have happened.
We have LoJack(http://www.lojackforlaptops.com/)... but we didn't understand lojak. We paid for LoJack and thought it was a piece of hardware sitting on the ethernet line, broadcast something of use over the internet connection to the LoJack people. It turns out... Dell didn't tell us that LoJack was all software and we had to actually finish the installation ourselves. To be fair to Dell, I didn't talk to them ... my wife did BUT she did explain that she doesn't even know how to use e-mail.
Here's the opportunity... I can't do this, but there are guys here that can[noparse]:)[/noparse]
What the world needs is a piece of hardware... doing what LoJack was supposed to do... which can't be screwed up by my wife[noparse]:)[/noparse]
I know the Prop has the innards to do this... but you guys have the actual brains.
Go get it.
Rich
The history is that I inherited a Dell notebook from my daughter, with a broken screen and a screwed up system. I got it all fixed up and was using it for my Prop work. I turned my back and it disappeared.
I've just spent the last week getting my Dell back... I ended up meeting the "fence" in a parking lot in the middle of the night. I felt like I was in a very bad movie. And it cost me $150 to get back my own computer... without causing innocent people to be accused of theft, which is what would have happened.
We have LoJack(http://www.lojackforlaptops.com/)... but we didn't understand lojak. We paid for LoJack and thought it was a piece of hardware sitting on the ethernet line, broadcast something of use over the internet connection to the LoJack people. It turns out... Dell didn't tell us that LoJack was all software and we had to actually finish the installation ourselves. To be fair to Dell, I didn't talk to them ... my wife did BUT she did explain that she doesn't even know how to use e-mail.
Here's the opportunity... I can't do this, but there are guys here that can[noparse]:)[/noparse]
What the world needs is a piece of hardware... doing what LoJack was supposed to do... which can't be screwed up by my wife[noparse]:)[/noparse]
I know the Prop has the innards to do this... but you guys have the actual brains.
Go get it.
Rich
Comments
1) A partnership with the major phone company (or perhaps an upstart) but someone who has a lot of WiFi hotspot coverage. Arrange to have a "hidden" 802.11 network that is always available with a given SSID (could be Lojack if you want
2) When you buy your laptop you register the laptop's serial number with your home address. You also get the fob. Put it on your keychain. If your laptop gets stolen within an hour it is start trying to advertise that fact.
--Chuck
[noparse][[/noparse]Oh, and I suspect its more like a 10 million AUD idea, but since I don't have the 10 million I would need to implement it I'll pass]
No need to have any fallible configuration or registration process. It's either factory installed and you get a card with its ID on to keep, or you buy a 'tag', fit it yourself and keep the card it comes with. A call to Customer Services to check it's working would be recommended but not a necessity if one wants to risk it.
I'm not familiar with LoJack, but if pre-installed as a background services on delivery, I'm surprised it didn't keep asking for name, address and contact number until it got the required details.