Looking for something to keep in the truck. Very small, fairly cheap. Just looking for something to write emails, do some spreadsheets, perhaps write some documents, which would sync through Boxcryptor.

If I encrypt the hard drive and close the laptop to put it to sleep, it cannot be recovered, if stolen, correct?

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If I encrypt the hard drive and close the laptop to put it to sleep, it cannot be recovered, if stolen, correct?

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If the laptop is in sleep mode, then someone could access the data if they find a way to bypass the lock screen.

OK, so would running it off work? If so, i will need a quick boot time as well as small

Turning it off would be ideal. I'm not certain but hibernate might be okay, too. If security is a concern, I'd recommend the more advanced Bitlocker configuration. You can set it up so that every time you boot up you have to enter a PIN to unlock the drive.

If you want a quick boot time, try and get a solid state drive (SSD). If you go the SSD route, avoid hibernate since you won't need it. It's meant to save time and that isn't necessary with a SSD. I have one with Bitlocker configured and it takes about 45 seconds for me to boot up, enter my PIN, and log in to Windows

Great! Any suggestions for brand for a small - 10-11" laptop?

I saw a little Toshiba Windows tablet on the Microsoft web store which looked neat but I'm not sure if it could do anything

Keep an eye out for one of these on Woot. They sell for $240-$260 or so. A coworker has one and loves it.

http://www.woot.com/offers/lenovo-thinkpad-yoga-11-6-touch-ultrabook-8?ref=w_cnt_gw_dly_tl

Speaking of Woot they have a few cheap laptops available right now. If they don't have a SSD, you could always buy one and install it yourself.

http://computers.woot.com/plus/lenovo-business-class-laptops-1
http://computers.woot.com/plus/hp-business-class-laptops-19
http://computers.woot.com/plus/dell-business-class-laptops-12

for the uses you mentioned, why not a chromebook. If the item is stolen, your data would be in the cloud...

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As long as your Chromebook was shut down, or you have the User setting "Require password to wake from sleep" enabled, you have nothing to worry about, as all data on your Chromebook is encrypted, and can only be accessed through the owner account and password.

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I would recommend this with the above mentioned user setting enabled to alleviate what I understood to be your concern in your original post.

I didn't think chrome books could do spreadsheets?

I'm not sure they can meet the requisite privacy requirements either

Google sheets is where you get spreadsheet capabilities.

If encryption in the cloud is a huge concern you have options to do that with google drive.

EDIT...Boxcryptor has a google drive option

You can't run Boxcryptor on a Chromebook though.
Whoops, saw that you can in Beta.


Speaking of encryption I was looking at encryption for the cloud today and I came across this open source software.
https://cryptomator.org/
Works great! The app works well too. I was using VeraCrypt for a while and realized that it would never update my encrypted folders to the cloud because the modification dates wouldn't change. Switched over to Cryptomator.