Lost my Apple gear in burglary.

[skateny]

Sad to say my home was broken into while I was away on the weekend. Forensic guy just completed his work, and said he got twenty five "good " prints. Cops and detectives were great, but I lost my beloved iBook. Over the years, I used all the information on this site, and did my own maintenance/repairs/upgrades, to make it hum.

I understand the poor likelihood that anything will be recovered. What I don't know (because I never paid much attention to it) is whether or not threre's a way to find these things without having a Mac or iOS device that is linked to the "Find My iPhone App" on my iPhone.

I'm sure most people here can identify with the feelings of loss that I'm experiencing, but to lose my iBook in this way makes it all the more difficult to manage. Looks like I'm going to have to "upgrade" to a MacBook before I planned to.

Thanks in advance for all your good help.

 

[eyoungren]

Sad to say my home was broken into while I was away on the weekend. Forensic guy just completed his work, and said he got twenty five "good " prints. Cops and detectives were great, but I lost my beloved iBook. Over the years, I used all the information on this site, and did my own maintenance/repairs/upgrades, to make it hum.

I understand the poor likelihood that anything will be recovered. What I don't know (because I never paid much attention to it) is whether or not threre's a way to find these things without having a Mac or iOS device that is linked to the "Find My iPhone App" on my iPhone.

I'm sure most people here can identify with the feelings of loss that I'm experiencing, but to lose my iBook in this way makes it all the more difficult to manage. Looks like I'm going to have to "upgrade" to a MacBook before I planned to.

Thanks in advance for all your good help.

That sucks man! Totally know how you feel. We were robbed the first night we (my wife and I) moved in as a couple. 16 years later and we are STILL discovering all the little stuff that got taken. My PC and my speakers were a big loss, but so was the data on the hard drive. I've never been able to rebuild my files from that.

We've also had our car stolen and I had to pay to get it out and re-registered. We were fortunate to get it back and that it wasn't wrecked and that they only stole everything inside. It's the only car we have.

I PMed you.

 

[Goftrey]

That's an absolute bummer mate.

If it's of any conciliation - we were robbed a couple of years back. They nabbed all of the jewellery, the Playstation, and most importantly - the PowerBook.

A couple of weeks went by without a word from the police, then they rung us up & said they've caught the guy & are questioning him now. Later that night we had a knock on our door, a policeman stood there with a rucksack, jam-packed with all of the stolen goods in.

...However he PowerBook no longer worked as the bloke had hid everything under a bush in the local park, presumably for safe keeping until he was in the clear & he could get shot of it.

What I'm trying to say is if it was a 'quick-job', as in there was just one guy with no heavy-lifting gear or some sort of van then there may be just that little bit of hope that you'll see the iBook again.

 

[rjcalifornia]

Sad to say my home was broken into while I was away on the weekend. Forensic guy just completed his work, and said he got twenty five "good " prints. Cops and detectives were great, but I lost my beloved iBook. Over the years, I used all the information on this site, and did my own maintenance/repairs/upgrades, to make it hum.

I understand the poor likelihood that anything will be recovered. What I don't know (because I never paid much attention to it) is whether or not threre's a way to find these things without having a Mac or iOS device that is linked to the "Find My iPhone App" on my iPhone.

I'm sure most people here can identify with the feelings of loss that I'm experiencing, but to lose my iBook in this way makes it all the more difficult to manage. Looks like I'm going to have to "upgrade" to a MacBook before I planned to.

Thanks in advance for all your good help.

Sorry to hear that, pal... At least the police showed up. Down here, the police never shows up.

Sorry to see you leave, I'm in the process of also 'upgrading', not a 'brand new', not the fastest, but the power I need for work

 

[TSAE]

since they stole your laptop and it probably has remembered passwords, check sites you vist regularly log-in logs and see what ip address it has that it was last logged in from then you got em

 

[Lil Chillbil]

The guy above me is dead on, then once you get any info on these guys give it to me

and we can work something out where I boot into hacker-os find out who this guy is, who is grandmother is where his best friend lives



and give them a good old fashioned worldwide credit card info leak on everyone in that family or who was even associated with these people


AND GIVE THEM HELL...

 

[DarkoDonnie]

so sorry to hear man. the IP tracking above is an simple/effective solution. I'm so nervous about this happening to me. I hope somehow you get back what was taken from you,

 

[rocknblogger]

Sad to say my home was broken into while I was away on the weekend. Forensic guy just completed his work, and said he got twenty five "good " prints. Cops and detectives were great, but I lost my beloved iBook. Over the years, I used all the information on this site, and did my own maintenance/repairs/upgrades, to make it hum.

I understand the poor likelihood that anything will be recovered. What I don't know (because I never paid much attention to it) is whether or not threre's a way to find these things without having a Mac or iOS device that is linked to the "Find My iPhone App" on my iPhone.

I'm sure most people here can identify with the feelings of loss that I'm experiencing, but to lose my iBook in this way makes it all the more difficult to manage. Looks like I'm going to have to "upgrade" to a MacBook before I planned to.

Thanks in advance for all your good help.

Terrible stuff. I hope you get your things back. But be grateful for the little bit of luck in that you weren't home. God only knows what could have happened if you were there.

I'm sorry to say I'm not very familiar with your iBook. As for the iPhone, you can log into iCloud on the web and track from there as long as you had iCloud enabled and find my iPhone.

Good luck!

 

[DrakkenWar]

Bah! That sucks man!

First off, really sorry for the loss man. There is something about these PPC's that make them more than computers. After all, why would I spend the money to put an ssd into this PB G4 I am using right now? Would have been cheaper in the long run to get a used MacBook..

But on to the point. I agree with Chill, if you can get some IP's from these degenerates? If they are actually dumb enough to login and use your computer without blowing the hd first? PM me. Forensics is what I do. And I would relish nailing them to a wall and getting your gear back. There is nothing worse than someone who can't face an honest days wage too so easily take what someone else worked hard for.

 

[skateny]

Just returned your PM. Not showing in my "Sent" folder.

That sucks man! Totally know how you feel. We were robbed the first night we (my wife and I) moved in as a couple. 16 years later and we are STILL discovering all the little stuff that got taken. My PC and my speakers were a big loss, but so was the data on the hard drive. I've never been able to rebuild my files from that.

We've also had our car stolen and I had to pay to get it out and re-registered. We were fortunate to get it back and that it wasn't wrecked and that they only stole everything inside. It's the only car we have.

I PMed you.

 

[skateny]

Thanks To Everyone

Things are settling down right about now. My sister has late-2007 MacBook that she rarely uses -- Windows laptop for work and all that -- so I've been busy changing all my important passwords on her loaner. Based on a couple of suggestions I read, perhaps I should have waited on that?

The uniformed cop who first arrived on the scene was great. He got the detective to come over right away. The detective basically walked me through the steps of the break-in, from entry to exit. Just like on TV. The forensics guy was great too -- "Don't touch anything till I'm done!" They all seemed as eager as I am to catch this guy(s).

I truly appreciate all the help and support I've gotten here for this issue, but you've all made it difficult to thank you individually. All of your comments helped a lot. That iBook was my baby, and the last PowerPC Mac I intended to own. Maybe have to change my thinking on that?

 

[Lunfai]

Argh, I hate these people who are the scum of the earth, thinking they can just take another's possession.

Im glad you're not hurt and that I hope you find who did this! - L

 

[eyoungren]

Just returned your PM. Not showing in my "Sent" folder.

Ahh! That explains it. I got four PMs!

I think you have to set it to keep a copy in the Sent folder. Not sure, but I know mine's working. Also, it doesn't automatically jump to the Sent folder after you send. You stay in the Inbox. You actually have to select the Sent folder and then click on the button to go there.

Didn't know if you were aware of that.

----------

Things are settling down right about now. My sister has late-2007 MacBook that she rarely uses -- Windows laptop for work and all that -- so I've been busy changing all my important passwords on her loaner. Based on a couple of suggestions I read, perhaps I should have waited on that?

The uniformed cop who first arrived on the scene was great. He got the detective to come over right away. The detective basically walked me through the steps of the break-in, from entry to exit. Just like on TV. The forensics guy was great too -- "Don't touch anything till I'm done!" They all seemed as eager as I am to catch this guy(s).

I truly appreciate all the help and support I've gotten here for this issue, but you've all made it difficult to thank you individually. All of your comments helped a lot. That iBook was my baby, and the last PowerPC Mac I intended to own. Maybe have to change my thinking on that?

Wish, we'd had something like that. We had no phone at the time and no power so we didn't want to leave the rest of our stuff by itself to go out and call the cops. We called at first light and they sent one uniformed officer who was doing her best to dissuade us from filing an inventory report.

No forensics, nothing. We lived in San Bernardino, Ca. at the time. They usually have better things to do like shootings, stabbings and carjackings so we were a low priority.

 

[Wildy]

It's good to hear that the police working on this case seem passionate about their job - I'm sure this will do you a lot of favours.

The first guy that stole it probably isn't looking for a new laptop, and I doubt you will catch him by checking for any logins from unknown IPs. He wants to flog it off ASAP, so check your local Gumtree (Craigslist?) and eBay listings, as well as any newspaper classifieds and boards at supermarkets etc. Someone I knew had an entire amp stack stolen, spotted it on eBay, and the police faked an interested buyer and staked out the guy when he came to meet him.

Failing that, once it changes hands your only best is watching for activity on your accounts - GMail is one off the top of my head.

I have a script I wrote, running in the background of every machine I own which pings my VPS in the cloud with some vital stats (IP, size of LAN, processes, WiFI SSID, recent internet history etc.) every couple of minutes. With this kind of info it should be fairly easy to track it down if it was ever stolen. Perhaps there might be something similar available you should try?

 

[rabidz7]

Sad to say my home was broken into while I was away on the weekend. Forensic guy just completed his work, and said he got twenty five "good " prints. Cops and detectives were great, but I lost my beloved iBook. Over the years, I used all the information on this site, and did my own maintenance/repairs/upgrades, to make it hum.

I understand the poor likelihood that anything will be recovered. What I don't know (because I never paid much attention to it) is whether or not threre's a way to find these things without having a Mac or iOS device that is linked to the "Find My iPhone App" on my iPhone.

I'm sure most people here can identify with the feelings of loss that I'm experiencing, but to lose my iBook in this way makes it all the more difficult to manage. Looks like I'm going to have to "upgrade" to a MacBook before I planned to.

Thanks in advance for all your good help.

What were the exact iBook specs?

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

My family home was robbed recently, thieves made off with probably $10,000 worth of stuff, plus sentimental items...... including my original iSight that I got for my birthday when I was a kid.

In an amazing coincidence of timing, I'd been playing around with it and motion detection software that morning - the last act of my cute little iSight, before being stolen, was the capture of a two minute movie of the thief ransacking my house.

Police had a good chuckle. Forensics dude saw exactly where to lift prints from.

G5 tower was too heavy to steal, and the crook was caught within 36 hours. Property not recovered, but ah well, that's life.

 

[SaberBlock]

In an amazing coincidence of timing, I'd been playing around with it and motion detection software that morning - the last act of my cute little iSight, before being stolen, was the capture of a two minute movie of the thief ransacking my house.

A similar thing happened to me a few years ago, I'd been setting up a webcam to watch the birds feeding in my back garden (literally the day before) and I inadvertently got footage of some construction workers stealing copper piping! Quality wasn't good enough to identify them but it was interesting to watch (although that feeling of violation after seeing people rummage through my garden wasn't particularly funny).

Best wishes to the OP - it's genuinely frustrating, you can plan for every hardware failure under the sun... but there's nothing you can do about that dishonest human element. Grr!!

 

[wobegong]

I'd been playing around with it and motion detection software that morning.

Yep I caught a cleaner rummaging with motion capture software although they didnt steal anything.

----------

(although that feeling of violation after seeing people rummage through my garden wasn't particularly funny).

Yep - I imagine thats the worst of all - touch wood never happened to me.

 

[joepunk]

Feel very terrible for your loss.

I have a little hiding place for my major electronics (laptop,HDs,backups) when I am gone longer than a day.

I like the idea of using an iSight and motion detection for video. Just wish I had an iSight and motion detection ability in my powerbook.


The worst that has happened to me and my family is cars/cd player in car getting stolen. Once was with a Toyota Camry (1990) taken for a joy ride while we were at a Pearl Jam concert in Seattle 1998 iirc. Noticed it was gone from it's parking spot and another camry was close by and obviously parked like it was ditched. Car found a week later.

Second one was a Honda Civic last December. Just had left for an hour to breakfast and when we returned it was gone. So was someone else's car in the same street on the same morning. Found it a week or so later abandoned in another neighbourhood in the same city. Everything in place and they even left their Jack in the Box trash for us.

My parents have been lucky in no home break ins (though the past is another story) but some neighbours haven't. They also have some neighbours who try to watch everything and every suspicious person on the street. Their good lookouts though I keep telling them to take pictures of questionable stakeout vehicles and people.

 

[RedCroissant]

Sad to say my home was broken into while I was away on the weekend. Forensic guy just completed his work, and said he got twenty five "good " prints. Cops and detectives were great, but I lost my beloved iBook. Over the years, I used all the information on this site, and did my own maintenance/repairs/upgrades, to make it hum.

I understand the poor likelihood that anything will be recovered. What I don't know (because I never paid much attention to it) is whether or not threre's a way to find these things without having a Mac or iOS device that is linked to the "Find My iPhone App" on my iPhone.

I'm sure most people here can identify with the feelings of loss that I'm experiencing, but to lose my iBook in this way makes it all the more difficult to manage. Looks like I'm going to have to "upgrade" to a MacBook before I planned to.

Thanks in advance for all your good help.

Hey Skateny,

This might not be what you want anymore, but now that my 14" iBook is working normally(except for the FW port) I would consider sending you my 12.1". If I remember correctly, they were the same model/specs. 12.1" iBook G4 mid-2005 1.33GHz 40GB HDD and 512MB RAM. All the ports work and if you want I can send you the machine with Leopard installed on it with my account deleted OR I can send you a Tiger disk(10.1, so you would also have ton install combo updates). Either way, let me know.

Did you have a backup of everything on something that wasn't stolen?