I would take along printouts of any vital materials you may need during the viva. Any chance of borrowing a laptop from a colleague or from the faculty? Sounds like you won't need one anyway. I wouldn't worry about it, and just focus all your energy on the viva preparation.

So you have two months until you submit, and your supervisor decides to essentially go AWOL? That's not acceptable. The final few months of your writeup is the time when you most need the support of your supervisor. I would have another discussion about this with your supervisor, and really push your case if they continue down to same line. If push comes to shove, go to the department head or equivalent for support. Who cares whether you ruffle a few feathers - if it means you get your PhD.

I had a few weeks off where I did nothing (PhD related), and just enjoyed not having to work on it in the evenings and on weekends (I was part time). Since then I've been drafting a couple of journal papers from my thesis. It's been 2 months since I've submitted, so I'm feeling a bit more aprehensive about the examination result. Thankfully I'm busy with a full time job and family, so I don't have much free time to dwell on it.

For my thesis, I had a 'Summary and Recommendations' chapter, rather than a conclusion chapter. My data chapters did a good job of covering off on most of points that Meaninginlife listed. However, the chapter was a good place tie everything together and address the objectives/research questions from the introduction chapter. The recommendations were the most enjoyable part to write of course. I even had a section called 'Contribution to Knowledge', which was a nice opportunity to remind the examiners about the original nature of the work.

Have a chat to your supervisor, as they may have suggestions about how you should structure your final chapter.

I would go to your supervisor and discuss this matter. If the work your are publishing isn't part of your PhD, and your PhD superrvisor isn't involved, then I don't see an issue there. If anything, your supervisor may request that you spend more of your time on publishing papers from your PhD.

As HazyJane said, it's just one package among many. More importantly, you should know your datasets inside and out, have a good grasp of the statistical method you are going to use, and can justify why you are using it. The problem with packages like SPSS is that they spew out reams of statistics, most of which you can discard. If using a simple test (e.g. ANOVA, t-test), you are better off doing the calculations manually, because at least you know how you got the result, rather than simply clicking an ok button.

Indeed, and the matter is covered in another thread (Sick of Spam on this forum!!!). However, you could be forgiven for missing it under the current circumstances.

I would have a chat with your supervisor/advisor about a suitable topic, and how to go about putting together a reserach proposal.

I'm not sure a web development team is necessary. Most internet forums have a group of users with admin rights, who have the power to delete posts and ban/block users. There isn't any programming or black magic, simply use the built in forum tools, assuming this forum has such tools.

Most of us have had those feelings of inadequacy and impending doom. There aren't any magic cures or panaceas unfortunately. The only way to overcome them is to keep buggering on, as Churchill used to say. A PhD is simply a hard slog - akin to wading through treacle, as a late collague of mine used to say.

It's fairly common to have data by the end of the first year. But it depends on your field of study. For some fields, like biology and ecology that involve a substantial field component, missing the first field season would be a big blow. For lab based studies or in disciplines where data can be collected fairly expedienty and not dependent on seasonality, not such a big deal. The first year can be hectic in terms of multitasking your candidacy proposal, literature review, and planning and conducting fieldwork/data collection. Once you have your first round of data, it does get easier - i.e. you actually know what you are doing the second time around!

My original supervisor left after a couple of years into my PhD. My replacement supervisor was not especially knowledgable about my area of research and was busy with teaching and coordinating units. I sought out an associate supervisor who was a specialist in my field of study. Here was someone who could critique my work to a similar standard (or higher) to that of a potential examiner, and also provide an sanity check for aspects of my thesis that I might have reservations over at times. My main supervisor was very helpful in the later stages of the writeup, when he provided a 'big picture' assessment of the thesis.

For most of my PhD, I was based 4000 km away from my university (very external indeed), but with the wonders of Skype, e-mail, telephone, and a couple of in-person visits to the campus, I was able to maintain a decent enough level of contact.

Unless the co-authors on the list contributed to the paper, don't put them on it. This is your work, and you would be fully justified in digging your heels in over this matter.

The way I see it, is that a PhD is a journey. For some, it's a relatively smooth one, and for others, well, they just have slog for a few extra miles. What matters is finishing the journey and reaping the rewards.

Maybe you should consider doing a PhD on the phsychology of women and their mindset in relationships. But I doubt anyone could come up with a rational or consclusive explanation after 4 years.

Seriously though, it's most likely non-PhD related, as a few others on here have suggested.

Ditto. Formal introductions or correspondence are the only occasion I can think of where you would refer to their title.