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Lock Your Laptop with Your Phone and Phoenix Freeze

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welcome-to-the-phoenix-freeze-e28094-phoenix-freezeXavier posted this over on Notebooks.com and it is certainly worth reposting here and a follow up here. This looks like a handy security tool for those who use a mobile phone and a laptop equipped with BlueTooth.

Phoenix Technologies has released a   little piece of software called Phoenix Freeze. Essentially you configure a zone or distance in the software and when you walk away (carrying your phone) from your laptop the software will lock it down to protect it from prying eyes. When you come back then presto, your laptop wakes back up.

There is also a power saving green mode that allows users to step away and the computer will step down its power consumption, and then resume when you come back into range.

According to some users at   jkOnTheRun, there appear to be some caveats and curiosities though. When you install the software some are reporting that this is a 14 day free trial but there is no mention on the Phoenix site of how much it will cost you when the trial is up. When I installed the software I saw no mention of the 14 Day Free Trial. Also, there is a warning on installation that   you can’t use this in tandem with a BlueTooth mouse or other gadget. The software is available for Vista and XP only at this point and all seems to be working as advertised here.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Chris

    05/10/2009 at 7:07 pm

    I tried the product anyway, made sure I had no other Bluetooth devices on or around the computer. (I don’t really use BT much anyway, so that was easy.) Installation was OK, but did require a reboot. Phone paired easily. But usage was a mess. While you are setting the app’s sensitivity (you can set distance to lock and time to engage the lock, and likewise both settings for unlock) it provides a handy TEST mode. But the test mode reveals another flaw… the app has a HUGE swing in how it reads distance. The settings aren’t exactly related to feet or any other unit of measurement (as I can tell, since they are negative numbers), but a setting of -4 on distance still didn’t lock the computer, because the TEST mode showed the app wasn’t measuring a set distance, but scanning around like mad. With my phone sitting about five feet away, in a very open room with no other devices running and no radios at all operating, the TEST mode’s reporting showed the numbers jumping from +2 to -8… never settling, as if I was running around the block with my phone. It DID lock, but the numbers kept scanning like mad. Not sure if this is an inherent problem with BT (it’s not exactly a distance measuring technology), but the app certainly is NOT ready for prime time. This is like an early alpha release, not sure how Phoenix thought it was ready for full blown sale. Weird. I uninstalled it immediately, as it is just not useful.

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