In which I lose the originals of the last three months of comics and the laptop I create them with.
I draw all my comics on paper, but I scan and process them on my lovely Fujitsu Lifebook P1510, a tiny hybrid tablet computer (it’s the size of a hardback book). I have high-resolution versions of all the comics, which I use for print versions and shirts and such. I used to save them to my Linux desktop, but recently I’ve been moving around a lot and I got in the habit of saving the comic files on my laptop. I’d gotten lazy about backing them up as I drew them, as evidenced by this exchange with the xkcd sysadmin last night:
18:02 <davean> Also, is [the high-res backup collection] up to date?
18:02 <xkcd> nope [Editor's note: here I was recognizing how guilty I should feel about this. I was answering casually because I knew both of us knew this was stupid and we didn't need to go over it again.]
18:02 <xkcd> I’m now sending in computer for repair
18:02 <xkcd> I’ll update the files when I back up the laptop later today
My laptop has had some hardware problems, so I was backing it up before I sent it in to Fujitsu to get it fixed. I was repartitioning my Linux desktop’s drive to make room for the files, and since that was taking a while I decided to go to sleep and finish the (months-overdue) backup when I woke up. Then, files nice and safe, I could send it to Fujitsu.
I slept in until about 1:25 PM. I’m a heavy sleeper, which explains why I didn’t wake up when, at 12:55 PM, someone forced opened a window to my apartment, came into my room, and stole my laptop off my desk within arm’s reach of where I was sleeping.
So, I have no laptop now. I think I can still manage to do comics on schedule (sans tablet screen or any sort of speed) via the cheap old XP machine I set up for that purpose during the repair. And I still have the pencil-and-ink copies of everything. But I do all the editing, arranging, coloring, etc. on the computer. The full versions of, for example, the recent kite comic, the Lisp comic, the Richard Stallman comic, and everything else since around New Year’s? Gone.
Nothing else was stolen except a little cash from my wallet. The police came and filed reports. There were a couple other burglaries in the complex on the same day. If it’s picked up they’ll call me, but I’m not holding my breath. If anyone sees it for sale on eBay, it’s a Fujitsu Lifebook P1510D with an extended battery pack, off-brand charger, and all the little logos removed. Sigh.
For the folks suggesting ways of tracking it online: my cryptography-geek security paranoia was canceled out by my laziness. I set up all sorts of ideas for dealing with stolen laptops, but never actually maintained them (after all, they were just paranoia). A year ago I bought wherethehellismylaptop.com, with the idea that every time it got online it could (securely) update the site with information about where it was and who was using it. But I never set that up. I have it automatically log in to a VPN, and I should be able to see it that way. But the VPN had stopped connecting a few weeks ago and I didn’t fix it. I’ll keep an eye out in case it phones home. I had also planned to make stickers that says “CONTAINS GPS, WILL BE TRACKED IF STOLEN,” (bluffing) but that’s part of my xkcd stickers plan that’s on a back burner right now.
Other than the comics, there’s not much that’s irreplaceable. But the laptop did contain assorted xkcd shipping records from last year (before I moved to the online system). Fortunately, there is no financial information about anyone (except me), but it did have the addresses I’ve shipped shirts to. And I had just removed the system passwords so the Fujitsu guys would be able to work on it. But I expect it’s just gonna be wiped and sold anyway. It was a mess — I’d be surprised if anyone else can use it.
And lastly, my roommates got me a RoboRaptor for Christmas, some sort of mini version of the popular toy you see everywhere. And I can’t help but notice that during the burglary it sat on the shelf and did nothing but watch. Fucking raptors. I guess it should have at least served as a reminder to never let ground-level windows go unsecured.
Fortunately, the place is a huge mess, so the thief didn’t spot my digital camera on the floor. It contains the results of a physics experiment involving 50 gallons of water and a parking deck that I’ll blag about later.
Edit: I know the lost data is my own damn fault, and it’s not so bad. I’m a lot more upset about the break-in while I was here and the loss of the laptop than the — rarely used — high-res comic files. I just want to share the awful irony that it was just when I was about to get back on track with backups that it happened.
I have also, in the past, been that obnoxious backup guy — the one who insists we back things up both here and here every six hours in case there’s a terrorist attack AND a tornado at the same time. So I feel even dumber about this.
Regarding offers of donations — thank you, I appreciate the support. But I should be able to replace the laptop. I feel like if this is the worst problem you have, you’re doing okay, you know?
Edit #2:
(Thanks to Matthew.)
March 16th, 2007 at 12:27 am
That sucks terribly. I’ll keep an eye out for it; make sure to contact pawn shops (if the cops haven’t already) and look on craigslist and ebay.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:00 am
That’s.. OHH! The.. OHHH! Well that’s terrible, I’m sorry it happened. I hope you can somehow find it.. maybe the Linux will scare them and they’ll just leave it somewhere easy to find. Sending condolences, it’s NOT nice to be invaded like that!
March 16th, 2007 at 1:04 am
Oh no! So sorry to hear. :(
- Chris.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:07 am
Not totally relevant here since you’re using a PC, but there’s a very similar service for Mac OS X machines:
http://orbicule.com/undercover/
Fortunately none of my Macs have been stolen yet, but they have some pretty good stories… though who knows, I live in the Mission and lost a window to gunshot yesterday afternoon (!!)
March 16th, 2007 at 1:10 am
Wow. That really sucks. I had my wallet stolen from me a few months ago and that was traumatic — losing my computer would be beyond traumatic. I hope that they find it. Are you needing a fundraiser to help fund the new compy?
March 16th, 2007 at 1:21 am
A very similar thing happen to a friend of mine last fall. He was up late coding in a student lounge, fell asleep sitting up for about 15 minutes, and woke up to find his Macbook gone.
I hope your laptop somehow finds it way back to you!
March 16th, 2007 at 1:22 am
My condolences :(
Fry
March 16th, 2007 at 1:42 am
Oh no! That really sucks. I vote for a collection to help replace your laptop. a Paypal link perhaps? I always look forward to new xkcd comics.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:34 am
A friend of mine, whose laptop is his primary machine, recently lost his NTFS MFT to some sort of accident. The data was on the drive, just not accessible. He spent ~4 days on my desktop (over the span of a week plus) running various recovery programs, until finally GetDataBack retrieved his files.
After the rest of us learned that he had ten years of music compositions on that drive and no backup, we went pretty nuts on that, to the point of offering him blank media so his music would always have a safe place. As soon as he finished the recovery, he burned the important stuff out to DVD.
A week later, he and the laptop tumbled down some stairs, crushing it.
I’m not really sure what the point of the story was, but it has something to do with Murphy’s law.
Lifebooks are nice, too. I hope you find something awesome to replace it.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:37 am
Sorry to hear that! I have never understood theft.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:54 am
Very sorry to hear about this, especially since you lost so much work in the form of coloring and such.
I guess the silver lining would be that you at least didn’t lose the original pencil and ink drawings, so it’s not like those comics are gone forever. Still, I can only imagine how frustrating this all is.
Best of luck, and I’ll keep and eye out for the laptop.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:17 am
Very sorry to hear that!
(I too am mostly to lazy for proper backups, and I’d die if my PC was ever stolen or the HDD crashed… )
March 16th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Yeah: I visited a handful of pawn shops to let them know that if they stumbled on it, I’d buy it no questions asked. But some of them said I shouldn’t talk to them, because if they recognize something as stolen, they are legally not permitted to buy it. Instead, they send a list to the police of stuff they take in, and it’s matched against the stolen items database. But others seemed nice and said they’d keep an eye out.
Tanya: Actually, the laptop was the one machine in the place running XP, so as to have native Photoshop (and handle Quicken and things, but that was a new addition so I didn’t lose much.) Also, games.
Jess Allen, Kimberly: Thank you! I think I can handle it myself, thanks to all the orders for the new t-shirts :)
Myself: Man, that story could’ve ended so painfully. One of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard had to do with a guy who was being fired and didn’t know it, and his data was deleted early by accident, and he spent the whole week mourning the lost data and then working diligently to reconstruct his last two years’ work, when everyone in the room knew that he was about to be fired and the data would be deleted again. It’s up there with Fry’s dog in the category of “stuff that I have to avoid thinking about for too long.”
tiuk: Yeah, although what gets posted often doesn’t look a lot like what was on paper — I can never recreate things exactly. I do a lot of alteration on the computer, redoing letters, adding lines, adjusting things. For such simple comics I can be pretty picky about details :) But yes, nothing too much is lost.
March 16th, 2007 at 5:27 am
Man that sucks :( I don’t suppose you’re making enough money on the T-shirts to be able to just go out and buy a new tablet PC without really worrying about the cost? *buys some more or something* :P
March 16th, 2007 at 6:11 am
I feel your pain, and sympathise, and feel duty bound to tell you that what you did (and failed to do) is dumb. If you recognise that you’re too busy to do manual backup steps, you must automate them. My wife has a “My Documents” folder on her laptop, which is automatically synchronised to a RAID-array in a server in the house, whenever the laptop connects via wireless. The crucial parts of the RAID-array is backed up every night onto another disk. The baby photos were last night archived onto a DVD, which will be sent to offsite secure fireproof storage.
Sorry again, but maybe you can learn this lesson (the hard way) and never suffer again.
Mike
March 16th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Man thats too bad :(
Wish you get it back sometime soon, somehow. :(
March 16th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Set up a Paypal account so we can donate and get you a new laptop.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Oh, no..say it isn’t so.
I hope your lappy won’t suffer from Stockholm syndrome :)
March 16th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Aw man that sucks! I’ve never had anything stolen like that but if I lost my computer I would have a case of the rages and also the lost datas. Instead I will have a case of the rages for you, by proxy! I hope - it helps, a little?
March 16th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Really sorry to hear about this, xkcd - and angry on your behalf!
I don’t know whether this will help, but I have every single one of your cartoons on my hard disk. Of course they aren’t the full resolution, just the best I could download from the site, but I’m sure that every single one is there (I began when your PI cartoon appeared on BoingBoing, and downloaded all the ones that were on your site at that time, then I set up an RSS feed once it was available). Assuming you can see my email from this post, drop me a line if that’s any help.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Dude, just be glad the guy didn’t kick you in the nuts or shoot you or take a crap on your couch or something.
On the plus side, this is a good excuse for me to convince my wife that it’s OK for me to buy more tee-shirts because it’s “for a cause”.
Also, pissing in your face would’ve been pretty traumatic. Man.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Man, “sucks” is about the only worked that sums it up. I don’t know what I’d do without my lappy. I have a spare 6 year old HP that just needs a little work if you want it. I mean, not that it’s good for anything besides looking like a laptop, but for the sake of xkcd, it’s all yours.
I hope that the desperate thief doesn’t slow you down, tho, for real.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:16 am
XKCDBloke, terrible news! Deep sympathies!
March 16th, 2007 at 9:31 am
awww I’m sorry to hear about your stolen laptop.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:34 am
It’s probably a really good thing you didn’t wake up while they were there. I was robbed twice when living in a particularly bad area in Brooklyn. The first time, i was cleaned out while I was away. The second time, I walked in just as they had broken through my bedroom window and I consider myself lucky to typing this right now, alive and not breathing through an iron lung.
Good luck with getting your laptop back, but my experience with the police is that for robberies, where no one sees the thief, they just file a report and that’s that. It’s gone and has likely already been sold to a shady electronics store, wiped and reloaded with Windows.
Anyway, I’m sorry to hear this. I know how it feels.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:35 am
1) You overlooked the possibilty that the raptor staged the whole thing. it is robo after all. (suggestion… robo-cop?)
2) Well, you’ve roused the ire of geeks all over the world. I’m sure if you happened to post that hardware address, someone somewhere could find it..? also, call a local college IT dept and talk to people there.. lots of schools register hardware addresses and provide all sorts of cool registration services to easily manipulated information systems students (bribe them with coffee and old kraftwerk cds).
3) Also, you’d be surprised. Stuff does turn up a lot. Just make sure the police have accurate contact info for you.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:37 am
never ever ever ever make another comic again
March 16th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Seriously - set up an account, paypal, amazon, whatever. I’m in.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Dude, sorry for your loss.. but im thinking the same as RB, have you checked the apartment and its surroundings for velociraptor foot prints? maybe its time to set up grape juice traps… theyre on to you..
im happy we dont have those creatures here in snowy sweden. (though we have polar bears, and theyre scary also ;-) )
March 16th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Damn, sorry to hear about that :/
Anyway, for the future, if you’re too lazy for full-blown backup (I can’t blame you, I am) you should think about setting up a secure SVN repository or something, where you’d store all your documents, everything you do (you can get your sysadmin do that on the xkcd machine can’t you?).
That way :
1. Your sysadmin can backup the repository, you don’t have to handle it yourself, he probably knows how to handle that kind of stuff and where and how to store the backups.
2. If you happen to get a machine stolen again, or if you destroy one, or if it fails, or anything else, at least your important stuff will be safely stored in a place where you can retrieve it from anywhere on earth (as long as you have a web connection).
SVN…
is good.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:50 am
+1 to setting up an account for “a new laptop” fund.
We will all be sad if a MWF happens and there’s no xkcd comic. Please don’t make us sad.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Also count me in for chipping in if you setup a paypal/amazon/other account.
March 16th, 2007 at 10:13 am
A few years back my house was broken into in the scant 20 minutes I had left the house. The result? The dirty thief took everything (DVDs, money, PlayStation’s and other gaming consoles, bikes, etc.) and left a huge mess.
Everything except for one thing thing that is.
My giant c.d. book? Opened up, flipped through and tossed on the floor. It seems my music taste isn’t worth a quick buck or two.
Anyhow,
I am a long time reader and stalker of all things xkcd but never a commenter of any sort. Hope everything works out well for you.
March 16th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Inside job! It was the raptor…
March 16th, 2007 at 10:20 am
I second that vote for SVN. I’m a heavy user of SVN and it’s saved my ass more times that I can count with rational numbers.
It’s a tragety that your laptop got stolen, but the fact that the thief was in the room with while you slept is more frightening. Everything material is easily replaceable, your life is not.
I hope they find your laptop and I hope the contents are intact.
Best of luck!
March 16th, 2007 at 10:24 am
This will be tracked by gps if stolen would be a good shirt for a kid
March 16th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Can you handle more t-shirt orders right now? If so, I’ll probably be ordering 1 for me and 1 for my wife. We can tell *each other* it’s for a good cause.
March 16th, 2007 at 10:49 am
All of you people requesting a PayPal link to donate to… XKCD has already said no, so why not just buy a few shirts? Its donation with the happy bonus of getting a shirt!
March 16th, 2007 at 10:55 am
paypal++
Glad you’re alive. Sorry to hear about your loss.
I think, should any xkcd readers find this guy, he ought to be more scared of us than he should be of raptors…
March 16th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Seriously. Like all the other folks, post a paypal account, and I’ll send you some money for all the joy xkcd has brought me.
March 16th, 2007 at 11:14 am
When you get lemons… make lemonade?
Maybe a comic about the incident would be a good way to get something positive out of it :)
March 16th, 2007 at 11:39 am
That sux, Hope they catch the freak, and hope you buy a dog soon. Crooks hate cute and furry, growling things.
March 16th, 2007 at 11:49 am
xkcd doesn’t make comics about him(her?)self (I mean, you didn’t really eat beads like a Turing machine, right? Right??) and please could everybody who offered money buy a t-shirt or donate it to Wikipedia or the EFF. :)
xkcd, thank you for keeping your comic ad-free. I love you. ;-)
March 16th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I don’t want a shirt. I want to give him money.
March 16th, 2007 at 11:57 am
PayPal > Shirts
The point is that sometimes we simply want to help out without the idea of being a consumer. Does every action I take need to relate back to a free market economy? It is hard to feel giving when I get swag out of the deal.
If a PayPal donation area was created I can feel that I helped XKCD in my own little way…and that means more than any damn t-shirt.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Sorry to hear about the loss.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I want to cry.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
You should make a comic about the incident and then sell T-Shirts with the comic on it to raise funds.
Maybe RegEx man could save the day?
March 16th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Sorry about the laptop; that is really frustrating. People are assholes.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
you are lying, an ISP or a hosting company always has your stuff backed-uped! Are you pulling a fast one. Forgive me I am Jaded!
March 16th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
“you are lying, an ISP or a hosting company always has your stuff backed-uped! Are you pulling a fast one. Forgive me I am Jaded!”
Please re-read his post. You obviously didn’t understand what he said.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
jdc Says:
> I don’t want a shirt. I want to give him money.
Ditto, I’m not interested in a shirt, I wouldn’t wear them and it would be kind-of a waste…
March 16th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
“And I had just removed the system passwords so the Fujitsu guys would be able to work on it.”
Am I the only one to whom that seems suspicious? A lot of robberies are _not_ crimes of opportunity.
What I mean is it’s hard not to correlate the fact that you were going to send the laptop to fujitsu and had presumably told them about this, and the theft happening just at the right moment. Something seems rotten in the state of Danemark.
Of course, there may be factors that invalidate this theory (you hadn’t phoned fujitsu yet, the laptop was in plain view of the street, etc), but I considered it worth mentioning.
Anyway, I am sorry to hear about this. Xkcd is my favourite webcomic. You have all my sympathy.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
xkcd, I love your comic, but have never commented on a Blag Entry. I am so incredibly sorry about your computer. That blows.
I’m sending evil thoughts in the direction of computer thieves everywhere. Like other people said, at least the thief (raptor) just took material things and not your life.
Seriously though, If you’re going to have a raptor in your room, you should at least surround it with a perimeter of grapes to keep it honest.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I have a 1510 myself — best portable I’ve ever had. People’s reactions are amusing. “Nice DVD player. Oh wait, that’s a computer? It runs Windows Mobile right? No kidding, it runs full Windows? And it has a gig of RAM?” And then I flip the screen around and start dragging windows with my fingernail and their head explodes.
The silver lining is, with the insurance money you can get a 1610 — it’s quite a bit nicer than what you lost.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Oh man, so sorry to hear that. This is just so terrible. I’m another big fan of xkcd here in India.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
That sucks!! Thieves are one of the lowest forms of life.
Your comic is the greatest thing ever. I hope this incident doesn’t dampen your spirits too much.
Once, I accidentally left an original comic I made in a copy machine, and when I returned, it was gone. I had copies, but the real thing… lost forever. That sort of thing makes you feel sick. The one thought that I held onto was, “Dammit, I’m going to make even better comics to make up for this one.” Mine was on a smaller scale, but… be kind to yourself. You couldn’t have known that some bastard was going to climb through your window.
Best of luck rebuilding, and remember, you’ve got a strong network of fans who want to help you however they can!
March 16th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Those ‘tracked by gps’ stickers would make a nice addition to the xkcd store. I’d surely put one on my laptops, in a NEVAR FORGET (to backup) kind of reminder.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Dude, I feel you. I was at the end of my service in Peace Corps and someone broke into my home and stole my laptop, containing two years of projects, photos, letters, songs I wrote, music…blah…my whole life at the time. Dumb people suck.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
“Fry’s dog”? you mean that episode of Futurama? Yeah, I feel downright sick when I watch that too.
ack! suffering now! over to CuteOverload I go!
March 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I’m a retired Police Officer; during my time in service I had occasion to be a Burglary / Theft Detective. Daytime Burglary is often done by teens skipping school. Other suspect(s) include dopers looking for money for their next high. Generally, neither group steals “things”, rather they steal money or things that might easily convert to a bit of cash. They didn’t steal your laptop because they needed a computer, rather it’s quick cash.
Most Burglars aren’t as bold as this, taking something from right by where someone was sleeping. I’d almost say it was good you didn’t wake up as the thief might have been armed. Confronting him, without you being armed with a pistol, would be potentially dangerous.
There is also the off-chance it was stolen by someone you know; someone who’s been in your apt. and knows what you have. You might have had a party, and someone came with someone else, who you didn’t know, but they saw what you had there.
Stealing and seling on-line is very common now, but easy to search on. If it has been stripped are broken-down for parts, then you stand little chance of recovery. More likely is the thief selling your item to another kid in school (HS or college) or to a pawn shop. Check the pawn shop regularly but DON’T tell them what you’re looking for. If they know you’re looking for a stolen computer it’ll just disappear. Keep you eye open and look around. If you DO spot your computer, do NOT confront the pawn shop guy. Call the Police first; and have an Officer meet you there. Have your Complaint number and your Computer serial number & info. The pawn shop doesn’t have to cooperate with YOU or tell YOU anything at all, but they are required to cooperate with the Police. You may or may not have to pay the pawn shop what he paid for the computer to get it back. Discuss that (privately) with the Officer.
Computer repair shops are the same. DON’T tell them you’re looking for a stolen item; that laptop will be in pieces so fast your head will spin. Not to say all repair shops are thieves, just saying trust but verify; ya know ? You might mention you’re looking to buy a Fujitsu because you used to have one and you like it so much; or, what ever.
Try and get your story out as much as possible. The more people looking, the more eyes helping you. Hope this helps. If you have further questions you have my e-mail.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Regarding: “I feel your pain, and sympathise, and feel duty bound to tell you that what you did (and failed to do) is dumb. If you recognise that you’re too busy to do manual backup steps, you must automate them.”
Yes. I had done this on my Linux tower, but not on the laptop. It would have been easy to do manual backups. It was stupid. This is my own damn fault. And I feel particularly dumb because I have been over-paranoid about backups in the past, and then got lax when it actually mattered.
ravloony: A couple other apartments were broken into on the same day. My laptop is easily the most valuable-looking thing in the apartment. This is nothing more than it seems.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Jerry: Haha, yes, that reaction to the 1510 is always fun. “Wait, it’s a REAL COMPUTER?”
What did they add to the 1610, other than the $500 price increase? I saw the gig of RAM (I only got the 512 MB), but what else is there?
March 16th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Frank Keough: That’s very good information — I knew a little of it.
I actually said something to one or two nearby pawn shop owners. But there are a lot of them in the area. I’ll definitely keep checking in. I stopped in to look in one of them recently and picked up a new electric skateboard for almost nothing :)
March 16th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
March 16th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Really, there’s isn’t anything I can add that hasn’t already been said .. really sorry to hear about this, hope it is recovered and the thief gets devoured by raptors!
I’m in on the paypal thing. There are much worse causes out there and given that I almost spewed coffee at my boss while reading your comic this morning it makes sending $$ completely worth it :)
March 16th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Well, that didn’t work.
Be on the lookout for this suspect.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Sorry to hear about it! But your outlook is astonishingly wonderful. Kudos to you.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I wish I’d written this earlier. Its called “Steal my laptop (I don’t care) - Securing laptop-data”
A simple HOWTO on laptop data-security:
http://ergo.rydlr.net/?p=39
March 16th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
It sucks to loose hardware, I’ve done that before (2 harddrives in the same day), but the one ray of good light is that you get to get new hardware afterwards.
Since you had a Fujitsu Lifebook P1510, I figured I’d suggest a similar machine (if you’re looking for a replacement) , the Toshiba Libretto U100/ U105. It’s pretty much the same machine, but not a tablet, and with a 1280×768 screen.
Also, if you really like small machines, you could check out the Sony UX series, and the new OQO model that came out, both of which are fast enough to be a useful computer, but are pocket-sized.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I heard this program might be able to help track down missing laptops. In the future, of course, when the software’s already installed.
http://www.pcphonehome.com/index.html
Sorry to hear this bum got his grubby hands on your stuff. You’ve got an awful lot of highly intelligent talent backing you up on this. Maybe they can give him hacking hell.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
[...] Monroe reports on his blag that his laptop was stolen by someone who forced a ground-floor window and took it from right next to where he was [...]
March 16th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Having had my own laptop stolen last week, I commiserate completely. Having it stolen while you were there would be extra creepy. I had lots of info there including my complete income taxes for the last few years, so I take heart in your comment that it will probably be wiped and reinstalled. I don’t want anybody getting their grubby little hands into my stuff.
I thought about all the things I could have done - encrypted disk volume, phone-home IP tracking, fake GPS stickers, more regular backups… and maybe I’ll do all that next time.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
: ( That really sucks. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my computer. Thankfully they didn’t take too much else. And if you aren’t going to set up a PayPal for donations, maybe this will be what finally convinces me to get all the xkcd shirts that I’ve been wanting for so long.
Good luck finding your laptop, and next time, get some raptors in some sort of buffer between your window and you, so they can attack someone coming in, but they’ll be stuck and not able to attack you. It will present a few challenges, but prove worthwhile over time.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
That is really terrible. I hope you find it - I’ll keep a lookout on ebay for a cpla months for you. I enjoy your comics a lot and wish we could do something to help.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
The Fujitsu Lifebook P1610D has the following over the P1510D:
1) Full-size PC Card slot - nice for road warriors with Sprint cards
2) LED backlighting for the display, yielding better battery life
3) Indoor/outdoor display - legible outside and you can disable the backlight with a hard switch
4) Bluetooth
5) You can rotate the screen either way to turn it around
6) The screen is higher resolution: 1280×768 instead of 1024×600
You can still get the 1610 with just 512MB if you prefer, and it’s then about the same price as the 1510 was. (The RAM upgrade is a ripoff — I bought a 1 GB stick for my 1510 for about $230, which is half what Fujitsu wants and you get to keep the 512 MB module that came with it.)
March 16th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I understand you can replace the laptop yourself, but why don’t you give us XKCD fans a chance to say how much we it? please please set up a paypal account, we beg you.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Man, that’s really bad, I hope you’ll manage to place it soon, I’d hate to be without your weekly beta humor, in case you’ll open up donations I’ll be glad to contribute.
March 16th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Ouch!
Am going off to buy a t-shirt soon to help with the new laptop.
So…… If we come across the laptop, obviously we take steps
to get it back for you but,
how do want us to err, handle the thief?
March 16th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
[...] The creator of my most favoritest webcomic everinthewholewideworld had his laptop stolen. [...]
March 16th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Ouch, what bad luck! Hope it resurfaces, but in fact, I don’t think so. My own experience with getting things stolen is only about backpacks and bikes (and a garden table right in front of the house), but luckily no breaking-in.
On a totally unrelated note — is the FS P1510 any good? I ask because I have an (really old) FS Lifebook B 2154, sound like the same form factor, but the tablet stopped working two or three years ago, and am looking a bit about subnotebooks as potential replacement for that …
March 16th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
the fujitsu p1000 series is the greatest laptop line ever created. i have a 4-5 year old p1120 that still rocks the house. its been loved and abused and covered with stickers, and it still does a wonderful job of running debian + wmii.
HOLD THE PHONE: the 1610D actually does have 1280×768? i was sure it was an engadget fuck up. does the pen have pressure sensitivity? i take it the screen wont pickup fingers?
March 16th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
oh man, that sucks. it’s so creepy to have it happen while you’re there. GAH!
March 16th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
My god man, that sucks, especially given that you were asleep right there. Possibility-for-far-worse says what?
With any luck the dude who stole it will be stupid enough to post it on eBay or Craiglist or (even better) go to a local pawn shop.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
So… what do you have against people who wear hats?
March 16th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
First, @#)$*)#%&_@#$*!
Second, I have cursed the thief so that all his zippers break.
Third, this can happen again. Camera (with >500 photos not backed up) and wallet stolen in China Jan 2006. Wallet stolen in the Bahamas Feb 2007. Thankfully didn’t take the camera out with me that night.
The two things that suck are that I also used to have a job descrption that included the role of “freakoutaboutbackupnazi” and that I thought to myself “do I have time to back these photos up and what’s the worst that will happen if I don’t? Yeah, no time, no biggie, it’ll be fine.” Goddamn myself.
Fourth, I love xkcd.
Fifth, I love you but don’t tell my boyfriend or he might clue in to my binary heart wallpaper ;)
March 17th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Till: I know a whole slew of hackers who swear by the Fujitsu Lifebook P-series. One of them took it up Kilimanjaro, dropped it repeatedly in her bookbag, and has had both Linux and Windows running fine on it for a couple years now. I dearly love(d) my P1510, although it had a couple mechanical failures. I don’t think it’s enough to count as a pattern, though, and I tend to be pretty hard on electronics. The P7000 is the non-tablet I see them using the most. The S-series is larger but also incredibly thin — when closed, it always looks to me like someone left a detached laptop screen lying on the table. In general, I love ultraportables. If you want to go larger and want tablet functionality, there’s the T4215, but I’ve never seen one and don’t know anyone who uses them.
Yes, the pen is passive (pressure). That means it’s no good for serious art (although for some things it’s still a lot better than a mouse), but it also means I can get used to tapping the (protected) screen with my fingernail to click, which is really handy. And yeah, the P1610 seems to have 1280×768. Jeez, this thing gets better and better. Although without an increase in screen size, that could start to get squinty.
Jerry: Holy crap. That’s all stuff I missed on my once-over. Although are you sure about the two-way monitor rotation? I only see that listed in the T4215 featurelist.
Moshizzle: Aww — I hope the wallet was stolen without any harm to anyone. And thank you for the kind words. I won’t tell anyone except all the readers of this blog comment thread.
March 17th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Yargh, it’s the thought of someone creeping around within a few feet of my while I slept that gives me the screaming willies. My sympathy.
For a replacement have you thought about the Samsung Q1?
http://www.samsung.com/uk/products/mobilecomputing/ultramobile/np_q1_v000suk.asp
I think they are pretty bitchin’ little micros.
Either way, good luck and best wishes!
(And I agree the Frye’s dog episode of Futurama is one of the saddest things ever aired on TV. But you have to keep in mind Frye still has the dog fossil and is kind of fickle and the professor can always clone him sooner or later. He’s not dead, just in a holding pattern. Schroedinger’s Dog.)
March 18th, 2007 at 3:59 am
Condolences from another xkcd fan.
You should check out the Lenovo ThinkPad Z61t. They’re great laptops for either Linux or XP Pro, and Ubuntu Linux 6.10 installs flawlessly on them; even WiFi “Just Works” and it’s a particularly effective combination.
March 18th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I’ll kill him if you’d like.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Although are you sure about the two-way monitor rotation?
Pretty sure — I’ve seen it mentioned in some forums. Surprised it’s not on Fujitsu’s spec list. If it’s not actually on the unit, it wouldn’t really bother me much.
To enhance the digitizer on the P1510D, I made a little utility that lets you tap-and-hold for a right click. This is sort of the unofficial support thread for it over at Leog.net.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:37 am
That sucks. It seems like everyone is getting robbed of late (two of my friends, one of my professors, and now a random web-comicker on the internet). As far as replacements are concerned, IBM makes a handy little convertible tablet that is built more solidly than many cars. I’ve got an x41 and despite my propensity to destroy all things electronic (in the space of a year I killed an iPod, a Motion Computing Tablet PC, a graphing calculator, and a cell phone), it lives and thrives.
March 19th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Holy shit, the idea of a thief coming into my bedroom while I’m asleep is horrifying. You get the dubious award of being one of the soundest sleepers I’ve ever heard of. That said, I’d probably assume it was a cat crawling on my desk and swear weakly before going back to sleep. It’s a really good thing they weren’t violent! D:
It sucks that you’ve lost all that data, too. I’m sorry to hear it! Best of luck to getting a new one.
On a slightly different note, your recent Cat Proximity comic is taped to my printer where I can admire it daily, because it sums up a great portion of my life. YOU’RE A KITTY! It’s perfect. Do you have a cat (or cats)?
March 20th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Ditto to what Jess just said, except the Cat Proximity comic is on our kitchen pinboard right next to the Dalekmania calender and above the unpaid bills (indicating the comic’s status in the scheme of thing). Just thought you might like to know. ;-)
Sorry to hear about the laptop. Bummer, dude.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
What we seriously need is some sort of product that can securely lock a laptop to a desk. (Of course, it will need some sort of key or combination system so that the laptop can be removed, as there’s no point otherwise.)
March 20th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
http://us.kensington.com/html/1434.html
these all look too flimsy to protect from Raptors, though…
March 21st, 2007 at 1:19 am
That second edit is the funniest thing I’ve seen in quiet a while
PS: bad news about the laptop.
March 21st, 2007 at 2:13 am
Man, that sucks. Seriously. I’m the same way right now–I’ve fallen way behind on backing shit up. Best of luck in all this. Love the webcomic.
March 24th, 2007 at 2:44 am
What is your general location? If it’s ebayed, it’ll probably be from near where you live. eBay allows displaying auctions by location so it would be easier to spot.
It’s a long shot but it can’t hurt to edit your post to include that info.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Ooo! 100!
scary you didn’t wake up, sucks the laptop is gone. Cool that you can think of something better to do for a living than sneaking into someone’s freakin’ bedroom to steal gadgets for a living. Keep doing that.
Amgine
March 25th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
That sucks. 8^(
March 25th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Backing up my laptop as we speak… (it’s been a while)
March 26th, 2007 at 7:53 am
hey xkcd, there arent that many lifebook P1510Ds on ebay. maybe you could have a look at them? theres even this guy (http://tinyurl.com/yqwy53) which admits hes not the original owner.
March 28th, 2007 at 1:40 am
markansoul Says:
“you are lying, an ISP or a hosting company always has your stuff backed-uped! Are you pulling a fast one. Forgive me I am Jaded!”
Having worked in a large datacenter / hosting provider for over a year, and over 5 years in ISP tech support, I can tell you that unless you specifically pay your provider (of whatever service), you ain’t getting backups. Plus, you’d have to actually set up your system to back things up or do the backups manually, unless you pay the ISP / hosting provider to configure this (possibly part of the cost of the backup service - better check). You might get it with your service for “free” but generally that’ll mean your service costs “more” than elsewhere..
I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard someone complain “but I don’t HAVE backups!” when we tell him his drive has failed, OS crapped itself, or otherwise had their data doomed. Then there’s the people who buy a backup service, then never set it up, or set it up then don’t check that it’s still working.. they’re always suprised when they have no backups or out of date backups.
To be honest, most of what I have isn’t backed up, but I haven’t much that I can’t get again. Over 1TB of storage space and usually less than 20-30GB free at any one time in my “desktop” (full tower actually). Nearly all of that is a huge anime/manga collection (video, audio, etc) of which most of it is either burned off someplace or my friends have also.. my own projects aren’t backed up, but oh well. If I ever actually FINISHED anything it would be.
March 31st, 2007 at 10:43 am
>Marcus Says:
>March 16th, 2007 at 2:37 am
>Sorry to hear that! I have never understood theft.
wtf?? jx%k&#w@qz|pf?y! huh?
and sorry about your laptop. great comics though
*does geek fraternity sign*
no? never mind
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:49 am
[...] Original post by xkcd [...]
April 4th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
install large spikes and bits of broken glass to your next laptop… make those raptors work for it!
April 17th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I’m both lazy and the paranoid geek for backing up, so I feel your pain. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it before, but Mozy.com has become my best friend. I currently have upwards of 70+GB backed up through Mozy and I think I’m paying only ~$50 a year for it. (There are cheaper plans/options of course.)
Anyways, I stumbled across your website via ArsTechnica and love it!
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Dear xkcd,
I know you said that you can replace it yourself. We believe you, but we want to help. So set up the friggin’ paypal or whatever for the laptop fund, as a service to us, who feel bad, and want to help you, even though you don’t need it. Then, when you have all the money that people give, secretly donate that exact amount to http://www.heifer.org/ to buy llamas and stuff. Then, you’ll feel happy because you bought llamas for poor people, we will feel happy because we could help you out. It seems like you could cut out the middleman and just tell people to buy llamas (or ducks or whatever–I guess as a perl programmer I’m partial to the llamas), but sometimes life is circuitous.
Alternate idea–add a “check this box to contribute a dollar to the replace-the-laptop-fund” to your checkout for the shirts. It’s lazier that way.
Alternate (and completely orthogonal, for that matter) idea: agree that if we, the people, contribute enough to replace the laptop, you will, in gratitude to us for our generosity, set up an automated backup of your full resolution work as the very first thing, and put up some public place where we can see the file list so we can check up and bother you if it’s out of date.
Most of all, I hope this gives you ideas for new comics.
April 27th, 2007 at 2:34 am
It’s possible he isn’t setting up a paypal to make this all seem like some sort of scam, and wants to keep up a reputation among fools who might think it is.
May 12th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I have the same laptop and I feel your pain. Condolences.
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
A bit late to the party, but I’m sorry to hear about the laptop. Glad you’re okay, though.
For what it’s worth, I keep the assets for my own comic in git. The main reason for this is that it makes moving work between my shared projects volume and my laptop much easier. I find myself switching machines much more often, as there’s no danger of losing work due to copying one conflicting change over another, a problem even with rsync.
This has a nice side-effect: the cloned repository on each machine has a near-full copy of everything, so I don’t have to worry too much about losing data. I also periodically push to an off-site repository. It seems to be easier to keep up than a full backup strategy.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:59 am
wateva
July 13th, 2007 at 5:21 am
fast cash pawn shop
July 16th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Dude!
If your place can be broken into that easily by a mere thief, you stand absolutely no chance against raptors.
September 25th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Not to make light but high res stick figure art doesn’t contain that much more detail than low rez stick figure art. Vectorize them if you need to print them.
October 30th, 2007 at 11:30 am
greatings…
exellent…
December 18th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Ted…
I think your mother would be proud….
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:10 am
Ass Tight Ass Ass Worship…
I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view…
January 16th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
hahahaha……………
January 16th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
HAHAHAHAHAHA………………….
January 16th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
THIS IS FUNNY…………XKCD.COM ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 12th, 2008 at 1:32 am
laptop gps portable computer…
umm it really depends….
February 14th, 2008 at 9:18 am
gps tracking unit…
If you are in the market for a navigation system, you cannot go wrong with the portable gps ratings and reviews system….
March 13th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Uk Home Contents Insurance…
Do you think many people may consider it?…
April 10th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Sorry to hear that. I also had my laptop stolen in December 2007. If anyone finds a “Compaq Armada” please let me know. It was stolen from my apartment in California, then sold to a truck driver (Thomas Hank), who called me from Chicago, IL and tried extorting money from me to get it back. Needless to say, with his number on my cell and his full name, the police couldn’t do anything. My email: wing_zero_gundamwing20@yahoo.com
April 10th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Sorry to hear that. I also had my laptop stolen in December 2007. If anyone finds a “Compaq Armada” please let me know. It was stolen from my apartment in California, then sold to a truck driver (Thomas Hank), who called me from Chicago, IL and tried extorting money from me to get it back. Needless to say, with his number on my cell and his full name, the police couldn’t do anything. Sucks. My email: wing_zero_gundamwing20@yahoo.com
November 12th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
That’s.. OHH! The.. OHHH! Well that’s terrible, I’m sorry it happened. I hope you can somehow find it.. maybe the Linux will scare them and they’ll just leave it somewhere easy to find. Sending condolences, it’s NOT nice to be invaded like that!