Those enthusiastically toting their MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs to coffee shops and university libraries should take note of Adeona: a free program that helps recover laptops in the event of loss or theft.
Installation is very simple: download a file, double click an installer, and choose a password. Once the program is running, it can be forgotten entirely unless needed. It won’t give you the name and phone number of the disreputable person who made off with your lovely portable Mac, but it will give you information about any network the computer has been connected to. If your computer has a built-in camera, it can also be used to snap a picture of the perpetrator. That function probably also justifies putting it on any desktop PCs with an integral camera, such as the 20″ and 24″ iMacs.
The software isn’t exclusively for Apple products (though those who shell out the cash for Steve Jobs’ toys might need it most). Versions are also available for Linux, Windows XP, and Vista.
Adeona Warns of Instability; OpenDHT Mothballed
“Adeona, the first open source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop, was featured on Slashdot last year. I was stoked when I read about how it worked and I installed it immediately. I just went to look for updates on the site and was greeted with a giant warning message stating, ‘Adeona is currently not working.’ It seems that OpenDHT, the distributed hash table that stores the location information and photos, has been fairly unstable lately. The developers claim that this is “largely because the back-end OpenDHT system is not able to tolerate the load imposed by Adeona. OpenDHT removed the need for a centralized database with tracking information, which in effect prevents a 3rd party from tracking a user’s whereabouts. OpenDHT was Sean Rhea’s Ph.D. project back in 2005 and he has decided to officially bow out of maintaining it as of July 1st, which has left the developers of Adeona looking for another back end to store location information and photos. The source code for Adeona is available and they are actively seeking developer contributions on the developer’s list. Do any developers have ideas on where to put scads of information in a free, reliable, anonymous, and secure manner?”