Back up, File Encryption, Remote Control and Virus Protection.

So your child is off to college, great. They have their laptop and are ready to go. Did you think about how their computer is being backed up? I mentioned this a couple weeks ago but and I am sure you immediately went and started to back up their computer to your network at home. Now their laptop is not in your house so how is it being backed up?  Did you sign up for a service like Carbonite?  Did you think about encrypting their hard drive to protect their data? If you are using a mac you can use file vault to do full disk encryption. If they have an external hard drive is that encrypted? You can also use a program called Truecrypt that can encrypt an entire external hard drive , flash drive or a portion of their eternal drive. Shall I even mention antivirus for Windows? You know they are going to be sharing files and clicking on links.  Make sure they are updating their computer with the latest patches.  The last thing to think about is being able to remote into their computer when they need help from any of the above problems.  You can use a program such as Logmein. It is cross platform so if you are on a mac you can remote control a windows pc or the other way around.