Monday Blues

Not got much done at work today as I lost my laptop on Friday. I'd secured it to the back of the scooter but about 2 clicks from work I looked around and nothing on the back. Turned around and drove slowly back to work but no sign of it on the sidewalk. Not best pleased as it had my tax return, bank statements etc etc in. The thing that really upset me was that for once I was using my trusty Billingham bag. Its something I cannot replace as they only made a limited run before deciding to stay with the Camera market they are more famous for. That bag has been all over the world with me. The hassle of changing bank accounts, social security numbers etc is nothing compaired to the loss of the bag itself. I've never been one for material things, I can pack my life into a couple of bags (as shown over the last year or so) and move on. The problem is this was one of the bags. I hope some good citizen finds and returns it but I do not have that much hope.

Went down to the police station to report it (for the insurance) but was told that I could phone it in on 0900 8844. This is a great service you phone up report the item/crime then they send you the forms to sign. The nice policeman at the station told me they were to busy to take my details as there was a bank robbery in progress in South Amstelveen. I love the way people leek information he had no reason to tell me anything but human nature is a funny thing. As I was taking my Girlfriend to the airport in a hour I decided not to see what other information I could get from the happy copper.

As somebody who has worked in the murky area of identity theft I'm well versed in all the steps I have to take to mitigate the risk of suffering from such a crime. My phone contains all the cancellation numbers and details (on secure storage) so within 20 minutes of the loss everything that was at short term risk was cancelled. I like the Motorola MPX its a great form factor but the fact that it only has 32 meg of on board storage coupled with PocketPC's inability to understand the add in storage card is the limiting factor, well that and the fact the battery life sucks big time. Any time a vendor phones you up offering a free extended battery for the demo stock they gave you its time to worry. At least it does deliver my corperate email so the loss of the PC is not the end of the world.

Today I've been using Windows Terminal Server which rocks. The server is some 3000 miles from my current location and it works very well. New PC is here so better start the update process.