Slightly Off Topic on a tuning board, but with many of the folks here running around with their laptops to do tuning stuff, it might be a good idea to protect them from being stolen ... or at least not to allow anybody access to the data should they lose it ...
The programmers of True Crypt just released the new 5.0 version of their encryption program, which now supports encrypting whole drives or system partitions ... once you run it over your HD, nobody should be able to access anything on the encrypted drive without the correct password ... got it running on mine, works like a charm, and is freeware!