Loughborough University has released a podcast on "What makes a good Research Student". It was surprising interesting. You can download it here:
http://learn.lboro.ac.uk/mod/podcast/media/3615/311/What_makes_a_good_research_student.mp3

NB: I have no affiliation with this apart from being a Lboro student.

======= Date Modified 19 May 2010 18:10:14 =======
1. I wrote my dissertation using MS Word and my thesis using latex. I personally would recommend latex. If you have ever used html mark-up then learning latex will not take long at all (similar sort of thing)


2. I used latex on osx, windows7 and ubuntu. There are no compatibility issues. Under osx I used texshop, under windows I used TeXnicCenter (I think) and under ubuntu I used a plugin for gedit.


While I'm not totally savvy regarding words bibliography functionality, with latex it is very simple to export automatic bibliographies via paper management software such as mendeley.


EDIT: If you didn't realise, you compile the latex document to produce a pdf/ps/dvi file.

Use dd to create an image of the drive. Or if it is already having problems try dd_rescue.
A quick google will show you what to do, but an example might be.
Find the drive: sudo fdisk -l
Clone the drive: dd if=/dev/sda of=disk.img
Once you have a replacement drive you can clone it back.

======= Date Modified 06 May 2010 17:03:52 =======
I had a reasonable number of typographical errors in my thesis which I found between sending to the examiners and my viva. I considered notifying my examiners in advance however my supervisors suggested that I needn't bother. In the actual viva no attention was drawn to those mistakes, they are more concerned with your research and overall comprehension. My list of corrections did of course include typos, many of which I had already corrected.

Edit: Has anyone ever passed with no corrections?!

I used post-it notes to index locations so that I could quickly flip to some important tables. Something I found very useful was that I wrote keywords beneath several references so that I could quickly justify why they had been included and how they backed up my argument.

Hi, I just took my viva and posted some thoughts on it here:
http://nxsfan.co.uk/blog/2010/04/29/doctor-vernon/

The most important thing I would have to say is don't worry!