Life on the road Page 2 of 3

Macworld’s field guide to living without a desktop

5 steps to a more secure laptop

You wouldn’t dream of carrying around your tax forms and bank statements in your backpack. Yet many of us don’t think twice about leaving equally sensitive data unprotected on our laptops for anyone to find.

If you must carry around personal or confidential files, make sure you’ve taken appropriate steps to protect them—and yourself. Losing a laptop is bad enough; your identity and bank accounts shouldn’t be at risk, too.

1. Require Identification With OS X’s Automatic Login feature turned on, your laptop is literally an open book. Anyone who presses the power button will have instant access to your files. To turn this feature off, go to the Accounts preference pane and click on Login Options. (If the button is dimmed, first click on the lock icon and enter your administrator password.) Deselect the Automatically Log In As user name option. Now anyone who tries to use your laptop will have to enter a password to access your system.

2. Encrypt Sensitive Files The login process will keep out the casual snoopers, but it won’t guarantee privacy. Thieves who know what they’re doing will be able to get around this barrier. So take extra precautions for sensitive files such as financial information or company data.

One of the easiest ways to protect important files is to place them in an encrypted disk image. When locked, an encrypted disk image ensures that only someone with the correct password can access the data. Once it’s unlocked, however, you can easily work with the files it contains.

You can create encrypted disk images with the help of Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities). To create a new disk image, choose File: New: Blank Disk Image, choose the desired size, and enable encryption. When you click on Create, you’ll be asked to provide a password for your disk image.

To work with the disk image, double-click on the resulting disk-image file and enter your password. It should appear as a disk in the Finder’s sidebar. You can now drag any folders or files you want to protect onto the disk image. When you’re done, unmount it to again encrypt the contents. ( Click here for detailed instructions on setting up encrypted disk images).

3. Lock It Down Encrypted disk images protect your files only when they’re locked. If you step away from your laptop after you’ve logged in and unlocked your files, anyone who walks by will have full access. To prevent this from happening, require a password to wake your computer from sleep or from the screen saver.

Open the Security preference pane and select the Require Password To Wake This Computer From Sleep Or Screen Saver option. Then switch to the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane and set your screen saver to turn on after a few minutes. (You may also want to set a hot corner so you can activate it manually.)

If you don’t want to have to enter your password every time you sit staring at your Mac’s screen for a couple of minutes, you can opt to lock your screen only when you’re stepping away from your computer. Open the Keychain Access utility (Applications/Utilities), and choose Keychain Access: Preferences. Click on the General tab and select the Show Status In Menu Bar option. A small lock icon will appear in your menu bar. Quit Keychain Access. The next time you need to step away for a moment, click on the lock icon and select Lock Screen.

4. Give Good Samaritans a Hand In case some well-intentioned soul finds your misplaced laptop, make sure that you provide information on how to get in touch with you. Visage, a $10 preference pane by Sanity Software ( ), gives you an easy way to add text—such as your first name, your e-mail address, and a phone number—to your Mac’s login screen.

5. Track It So what happens if your laptop gets stolen? If you’ve installed tracking software, such as SealthSignal’s XTool Computer Tracker, you may just have a shot at getting it back. This software communicates with a central server when the Mac is connected to the Internet. If you lose the laptop, contact SealthSignal—there’s a chance it will be able to find out where your computer is.