A friend of mine, Lynn Pierce had her laptop computer taken from inside her hotel room…while she was sleeping just a few feet away.  Hard to believe, but it is true.

Lynn Pierce states, “I was pretty well prepared for such a disaster — better than most, but not as good as some — and my business was saved because of it. But there were other things I could have done — and had always intended to do but hadn’t that could have either prevented the theft in the first place, or helped me to recover even faster.”

“In other words, you might think that doing one or two of these techniques is enough — and you might think it’s excessive. I promise you it’s not. If you lose your computer — either through an accident, or theft, or fire — you’ll need everything on your side to recover your personal information, your business, and your identity” states Lynn Pierce who experienced it first hand.

This article is by guest author Mark Widawer who sadly had this experience as well. Mark is the guru  on traffic conversion for your website. You will find many helpful hints and tips from Mark at his trafficandconversion.com.

5 Keys Things YOU must do to protect your data and your computer by Mark Widawer.

1) COMPUTER LOG-IN – Always password protect your computer. Require a password each time your computer is rebooted or wakes up from sleep mode. If you have multiple users on your computer (for you, your spouse, coworkers, etc) then also make sure that their logins are password protected. Otherwise, someone can log into their account and get to your data.

2) LOJACK FOR LAPTOPS — I still have not done this yet. Shame on me!

If you have Lojack for Laptops, you can activate a search feature, which would work with the local police to help locate the laptop as soon as it was connected to the Internet.

http://www.LojackForLaptops.com

Lojack for Laptops has a Premium version which allows you a very special feature, assuming you want to keep your data top-secret: You can set Lojack to delete your data if it is stolen. That will keep your data away from someone else’s prying eyes, but if you ever recover your laptop, you won’t be able to get the data either.

3) LOCAL BACKUP – Here’s a bit of good news — Lynn and Mark use Acronis True Image because it is fast and very easy to use. Lynn’s entire 160gb hard drive backs up in just two hours…if she needs to do a complete backup. Lynn recommends scheduling an automatic “incremental” backup every week or every night so that all of the changes are saved in just a few minutes.

4) ONLINE BACKUP – If you have a local backup, why do you need an offline backup, too?

Well, there are two VERY important reasons. First, if you are traveling and lose a file — or your whole computer — you can access your online backup instantly from anywhere.

Second, if your home or office (where ever you keep your local backup) is robbed or has some other disaster (fire, earthquake, etc), you still have another backup somewhere else, safe and sound.

Lynn uses Mozy which lets you back up your entire computer — no matter how big the hard drive! And unlike many similar services (Carbonite, etc), it will also backup external USB drives.

You can get a free account to back up up to 2 Gigs of data for free at http://www.MarkPrefers.com/mozy,  The full service is $5 a month.

5) PASSWORD PROTECTION - Today’s browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox, have the ability to keep you logged into some of your favorite sites, and to even log you in automatically.

I have my passwords in a locked place.  Instead, listen to my friends Lynn & Mark and use a program like Roboform (http://www.RoboformFreeTrial.com).

I visit hundreds of websites every week and have been guilty of using Firefox and staying logged in or having Firefox remember me by checking the box “Remember Me”. ..

Lynn Pierce, Martin Howey, Joel Bauer, and many others have recommended to me to use Roboform to fill in my usernames and passwords and it will fill in your address and credit card info, too.

I’d like to thank Mark and Lynn for sharing their most unfortunate experiences and hopefully saving many of you from the same experience. Please post any suggestions you may have on this blog.

Lynn Pierce, the Success Architect, has taught people how to combine business and personal development to reach the pinnacle of success and live the life of their dreams for over 25 years. In addition, she is also the founder of one of the most exciting annual events for women entrepreneurs, “Women’s Business Empowerment Summit”. Now she shares her keys to success and life mastery with you. You can get the first five lessons of “Change One Thing, Change Your Life: A Personal Transformation System” at http://www.yourbreakthroughtosuccess.com