Encrypting everything at the block level has gotten reliable enough that there are no excuses not to apply it to any and all kinds of mobile devices.

With Ubuntu 12.10 onwards you have the option to use dm-crypt for full disk encryption baked right into the installer. With 12.04 and earlier you have to use the alternate CD, but it's still painless. Android also uses dm-crypt for its FDE implementation, also dead easy to enable.

With a password manager for the rest of your passwords, and an SSH key for remote system access, you can manage everything only knowing three different passphrases.

Using FDE precludes theft protection programs, obviously, since an attacker wouldn't have access to a live OS. But if you're willing to forego a bit of fun (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo) and the chance to recover the hardware, you have a pretty solid guarantee that no one will get to your data.

And, of course, daily backups, which is another can of worms. Personally I just rsync to a remote system and offsite that data periodically.