I have an IBM T42p laptop and it comes with a shock protection program. I wasn’t sure why I needed such a utility as it is yet another application that takes memory and slows down my computer. I was on a bumpy flight to San Jose ysterday and I opened the application during turbulence to see what the program did. The application is called IBM Active Protection System and you can click on the Real-Time Status tab to see the laptop visibly shaking in a window. You can even see when the program pauses the hard drive. This is necessary as a write or read coinciding with a sufficiently large bump could damage the disk or the data on residing on it. I don’t know if other laptop vendors have such a utility and I have never lost data that I am aware due to a shock. Sill, there is an increased comfort level knowing there is a hard disk guardian angel under the keyboard keeping an eye on things as I type.