Laptop security

Hope this is the right forum to post.

I am thinking of getting a MacBook next year. Having seen that people and Government have lost plenty of data from stolen laptops recently, my question is:

What would you do to ensure that your private data remains private in the event that your mac is stolen.

I know you can encrypt your user folder, and you can also create a password protected disk partition, but what do people on here recommend?

For sure, I would at least disable automatic login in the System Preferences' Security pane. But I admit I have never given it too much thought. There might be third-party solutions to this, I really don't know.

I'll let others stop by to give you their input, I'm certain their ideas are much better than mine.

Have you thought of activating Fire Vault which is built in and can be set to a master password?

Here is an article on setting up and using the program:-

http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/securing-your-stuff-with-tiger-s-firevault/200290

I'm pretty sure he knows about FileVault based on his original post.