<p>The local jeweler says the back of the Mac laptop cannot be engraved because it is not metal. That makes sense, but I would like to do something to mark to computer as mine, and maybe deter potential thieves. Anyone with any ideas?</p>
<p>my son has stickers and decals plastered all over his. . .it’s truly unique;-) btw/ it has lasted through one year of high school and two years of college.</p>
<p>The police dept. at my son’s university etched driver’s license numbers onto students’ laptops a couple of years ago. He has a black Macbook and didn’t have trouble. I don’t know what kind of etching tool they used, though.</p>
<p>Must say–I don’t recommend engraving in case you ever want to sell the laptop. Stickers are very common and imo look better than having your name engraved on it.</p>
<p>UT Austin campus police recommend you engrave your driver’s license number onto your laptop. My Ohio license could be “OH746532989” say. Then, in theory, if the laptop shows up at a pawn shop or with a stack of stolen electronics, the police could easily find you and call you and ask if you are missing a laptop. You say, yes thank you for finding it or no, I sold it last month. </p>
<p>But probably the main (best) thing: thieves know that laptops with a driver’s license number engraved on it are easy to trace, so they don’t make an effort to steal them; they grab the ones that are not marked up. (The bad guys can peel stickers off.)</p>
<p>The new macs cannot probably be engraved due to their aluminum casing - the better to recycle by. Don’t know an answer, except to not leave it lying around.</p>
<p>Our police do not recommend using your drivers license since they probably have other personal information such as name, address and perhaps things like bank account numbers and such somewhere (Email) in the computer so with that kind of information you are being set up for Identity theft. I do not know how you can deter theft but I know that I loaded a program called Laptop cop and my D’s in case it gets stolen we at least have a chance of getting it back. My D has also been told to password protect not only the sign page but also the BIOS.</p>
<p>Had son’s ipod laser engraved…ipod croaked 3 weeks later, they replaced it with a new, non-engraved one. So much for that!</p>
<p>A big fat sticker is just as effective a deterrent.</p>
<p>They have Lo-Jack for computers. My kids computers came with them.</p>
<p>I got “stop theft” plates (you can google it to get the website). They are thin metal plates with a unique ID number that glue onto the computer case. It it is stolen/lost, the person who recovers it can call the toll-free number and you can get your property returned (you register your plate and personal info at the stop theft website). If the plate is removed, there is an indelible tattoo etched in that states it is stolen property with a number–it can still be recovered if found, because you also register the serial number of the computer with the website. I’m hoping that the mere presence of the plate/label on the computer is enough to send the thieves on to the next one. My kids didn’t want anything messing up their beautiful Macbooks, but I insisted. I also bought smaller plates for their ipods and our video cameras.</p>