The number one defacto problem with sample based studies is that we know for a fact that people who take part in surveys are not necessarily representative of everyone else. The magnitude of this problem is debated (see John Brehm's book The Phantom Respondents).
Chapter 5 on "What to Avoid" explains how selection bias works, and why, for example, asking 40,000 people who agree to have their computers monitored by a commercial research marketing group is probably a heavily biased sample.
That being said, its interesting to note that the same research firm notes that while file sharing has an impact on record sales, the music industry is still to blame for declining sales.
If you really want to save the partition table, all you've got to do is save the very first sector of your hard-drive using DD. To restore the partition, just copy it back (also using DD). It might be handy to have linux on floppies just in case you're stuck with a dead system.
I believe you should think about the uses of such a thing. Having a copy of your partition may be handy if you lose your partition sector (it happens, sometimes), but saving a partition table in one geometry and restoring it on another may be messy. Linux only uses the "relative sector" count, but anyway I don't believe it's wise to change the disk and keep the old partition table.
As for "changing the partition" on the fly, well, I think it would *rule* but it's very complicated. Think of your underlying file system. It will have to be changed too. Files will have to be relocated and things like that. In the future, I hope Linux will have something like LVM (Logical Volume Manager) from HP, but in the meantime, It's my opinion that logical backups are the best way to protect yourself against failures.
In the event of a catastrophe, all you have to do is reinstall the same version of Linux (usually a quick task) and restore all of your files from the tape
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The number one defacto problem with sample based studies is that we know for a fact that people who take part in surveys are not necessarily representative of everyone else. The magnitude of this problem is debated (see John Brehm's book The Phantom Respondents).
Read the social science classic Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research by King, Keohane, and Verba.
Chapter 5 on "What to Avoid" explains how selection bias works, and why, for example, asking 40,000 people who agree to have their computers monitored by a commercial research marketing group is probably a heavily biased sample.
That being said, its interesting to note that the same research firm notes that while file sharing has an impact on record sales, the music industry is still to blame for declining sales.
Hello
If you really want to save the partition table,
all you've got to do is save the very first
sector of your hard-drive using DD.
To restore the partition, just copy it back
(also using DD). It might be handy to have
linux on floppies just in case you're stuck
with a dead system.
I believe you should think about the uses of
such a thing. Having a copy of your partition
may be handy if you lose your partition sector
(it happens, sometimes), but saving a partition
table in one geometry and restoring it on
another may be messy. Linux only uses the
"relative sector" count, but anyway I don't
believe it's wise to change the disk and keep
the old partition table.
As for "changing the partition" on the fly,
well, I think it would *rule* but it's very
complicated. Think of your underlying file
system. It will have to be changed too.
Files will have to be relocated and things
like that. In the future, I hope Linux will
have something like LVM (Logical Volume
Manager) from HP, but in the meantime, It's
my opinion that logical backups are the best
way to protect yourself against failures.
In the event of a catastrophe, all you have
to do is reinstall the same version of Linux
(usually a quick task) and restore all of your
files from the tape
Hope it helps
Paga