Losing your laptop is an ugly event. I’d like to show you a simple way to improve your chances of getting your beloved laptop back. The idea is simple – create a wallpaper image that shows up when your computer is at the login screen.

All I did was grab a pre-packaged image from the wallpaper selections of the OS and printed some text on it that says who it belongs to and what number to call in the event the laptop is recovered. If someone were to find the laptop, they could very easily determine the owner and get in touch with you about getting it returned.

Tips on creating your image:

• Make it easy to find and in a location that won’t be covered by the login dialog
• It should also stand out and be easy to read
• Give contact info on whom to call (or email) in the event the laptop is found
• Say a reward will be offered (optional)

Windows Users

I don’t know of any easy way to differentiate between the login wallpaper and the Windows wallpaper, so changing your desktop background should do the trick. There’s a more complex, registry-hack way to do it shown here (I’m not responsible if you FUBAR your computer in the process).

Leopard Users

Simply replace (after backing up) the image located at /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg with your new file. The new file must be named DefaultDesktop.jpg.

Ubuntu Users

You can find the settings under System -> Administration -> Login Window. Under Style choose Plain, then select your image in the next selection menu. You might want to put the image in /usr/share/backgrounds to make sure you don’t accidentally delete it. Also, this modifies the login window so you’ll have to do some more customizations on that.