Want security ideas

I never gave security for my computers much thought until my home was burglarized this week and my laptop was stolen.

Although I did have Lojack laptop software installed, it is not proving to be all that they said it was. They have so many disclaimers in the fine print that if you bother to really read it you just know that they aren't going to get your laptop recovered. It looks like at this point that they are just going to give me a refund for their software and write me and my laptop off. Tell me this ain't a perfect racket. They sell a few million copies of security software with only the promise to give you your money back if they can't retrieve it should it get stolen. The law of averages is on their side better than the casino's advantage in Vegas. Ao maybe they have to give 10 percent of the customers a refund when their notebooks are taken.

Anyway....enough of the rant

I don't do any on-line banking with computers and I don't store any of my passwords on them but even so, that stolen laptop is providing someone with access to all of my photos, music and surfing habits which I find unsettling. I didn't have any resident email program on that laptop with saved emails or anything, all of that I leave on my ISP's server so I am thinking I should be ok there.

If you would care to offer suggestions as to how I should better secure my desktop PC which wasn't stolen ( yet) I would appreciate your thoughts and comments.

Is a user accounts that you have to log into with a password at the boot up a good way to go?