Well, your laptop has been stolen. Or perhaps you lost it, and some unscrupulous individual picked it up (in other words, they stole it).

How can you retrieve it? Fire up the that you had the foresight to install on your machine.

A new breed of has arrived, and it's very effective. Using several different elements, including IP address locations, Wi-Fi positioning, and even the ability to turn on the laptop's webcam remotely, laptop-tracking software can help you .

Flipcode's , Absolute Software's , and ActiveTrak's are just a few examples of laptop-tracking software.

A small Mac application, the $15-a-year Hidden uses IP addresses to pinpoint your laptop's location. On top of that, Hidden can take photos remotely using your laptop's webcam, as well as capture screenshots of what the thief does on your computer, so you can identify the culprit by both face and name (if the person happens to log in to an email account or social network).