Laptops are complete machines, in and of themselves. As such, they are structurally designed to be at their most damage resistant when closed and latched. Never transport your laptop while open. Add-on cards and peripherals should be inserted or attached with care and ALWAYS removed for transport. Never move your laptop while the power cord is plugged in. Add-on cards, power adapter plugs, USB connectors, and open screens provide leverage points through which catastrophic failures can be caused with only a small amount of pressure. Never tilt your laptop forward or backwards to get at connection points or card slots, as this also may cause stress on plugs or components.

Keep food and drinks away from your laptop. Unlike a desktop PC, which has a keyboard and a mouse attached by cables to the machine, your laptop's keyboard and pointing device are poised directly above the very heart and soul of the computer. A minor soda spill into the keyboard of a desktop can be a minor inconvenience, but a minor spill into a laptop keyboard can be the end of the laptop.

Do not allow your laptop to operate in conditions that you wouldn't put yourself in. Do not allow your laptop to hang out in freezing temperatures (the L in LCD is for Liquid, and we don't like our LCDs to freeze).

Do not use your laptop with the fans obstructed by cloth, towels, blankets, carpet, etc. Laptops are delicate and specifically tuned to operate at very high temperatures with optimal airflow. Blocking the fans in any way may cause an overheat with possibly permanent damage.

If you do not already have one, get yourself a laptop case that fits your laptop comfortably and has adequate padding to protect your investment. It is not critical, but it's a good idea to carry copies (by that we mean COPIES, not ORIGINALS (THIS IS PERFECTLY LEGAL -- click here for more information)) of your most important software and blank CDs or DVDs with which to make backups.

Whenever possible, run your laptop in a position closely approximating true vertical or true horizontal. The hard drive in your laptop is a gyroscope, though not by design, which will attempt to reach either true horizontal or true vertical  (whichever is closest) as it spins. If this torques the drive platters on the spindle (axle) it can cause undue stress on the hard drive, leading to its early demise.

Backups with Laptops are ten times as critical as with Desktop computers. In a brief instant, your laptop could be sitting at the bottom of a lake, crushed by a passing vehicle, smashed on the ground, or stolen. Make backup CDs or DVDs frequently, and keep them in a shoebox in your bedroom closet or in a drawer in your office. That way, recovering your data is simple once you have your old laptop repaired or replaced.

If you are "on the road" with your laptop, and critical data needs to be backed up, consider sending a copy of the backup to your home office location. This way, if your laptop case is stolen at the airport, or if you accidentally leave it in your hotel room, the data is safe.