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This Jason Hiner article at ZDNet is a long-winded way of saying that partitioning a drive — carving out separate areas on the physical hard disk that separately hold the OS and the user's data — should be the default way all operating systems are installed.

I agree. I do it all the time. Since I don't spend much time installing Windows and OS X, I don't know how hard/easy it is to create and use separate partitions for data. I know that since OS X is Unix-based, it should be easy and a lack of ease in this shows a lot of short-sightedness on Apple's part.

For Windows, this kind of thing should be mandatory. I haven't seen a Windows XP installation that couldn't benefit greatly from a full reinstall after more than a couple years in service.

But ... whether you have your data in a separate partition or just in the /home or MyDocuments folder on a solitary partition, none of it matters if you don't have complete, up-to-date backups of your user data — meaning all of your files, important and otherwise.

Because even if you have your "/home" files in a separate partition, it's all too easy to blow away said partition when you're doing a reinstall or fixing a problem.

So from that perspective, I'll say that partitioning a hard drive can make things easier and even more secure, but using one huge partition ain't the end of the world if only you have everything backed up and are keeping those backups current.

Note: I have a certain "way" of partitioning my Linux hard drives for the desktop:

I start the drive with Linux swap. Opinions differ on how much swap to use, but it does depend on the amount of RAM and disk space you have. Mine go anywhere from 500 MB to 2 GB. The goal is to use swap sparingly or never, but with this partitioning scheme, you can increase or decrease the size of any or all of the partitions with little trouble in Gparted.

My next partition is the /root partition where the OS will "live." This is a primary partition, for those who know what that means. I make this as big as necessary and then add a bit more. These days I like a 10 GB /root partition. You could go 20 GB if you have a huge drive, or you could go 6 GB or even 5 GB if you are having space issues. I'm not comfortable with less than 5 GB.

Then I turn the rest of the drive into a secondary partition (thanks to Gparted running from a live CD, usually PartedMagic in my case, this becomes blissfully easy after your first few times doing it). Within that partition I create a logical partition for /home that fills up the entire secondary partition. If for some reason I need to create one or 20 extra logical partitions in that secondary partition, I can easily do so.

And if I have to give more space to /home and less to /root, or vice-versa, I can do that without worrying about /swap being in the middle (because I purposefully put it at the beginning of the drive). It's an easy operation in Gparted.

I'm sure there are better ways of doing this, and some think that since the beginning of the drive is accessed the quickest that you should put something that sees more action than /swap there (and remember, the ideal for me at least is to NEVER access /swap), but this layout works well for me.

I have a graphic of this somewhere, and I'll try to pop it into the top of this entry at some point in the near future.

But this is a long way of saying that Jason Hiner's plea to "save the PC" by using multiple partitions as a rule will do that (i.e. "save the PC" from extinction). It's just the right thing to do. But making backups is more right, and that's what I want to tell all dozen of you who happen to be reading this entry.

I'm really only doing this entry for the killer title. But behind it is a new ZDNet blog called iGeneration and written by a seemingly youngish Brit named Zack Whittaker:

His bio:

Zack Whittaker started playing with computers before he could even tie his shoelaces; although that skill wasn't discovered until he was 10. Amongst many things, he is a good-for-nothing, pink sock wearing, British student at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK studying computer science. In between studying, drinking, and occasionally sleeping, he works with researchers studying neurological illnesses like Tourette's syndrome (of which he suffers from), gives talks and lectures on disabilities, and throws in a little child protection and family safety work now and then.

He grew up in "Robin Hood Country" in Nottinghamshire, UK for the best part of his life, but still heads there on occasion to see his ever-supporting and loving family, godchildren and his friends. Although due to his age he may seem inexperienced and misguided, but he's already totalled up many years of work, education, knowledge and general (mis)adventure.

CNET's ZDNet has been through some hard times of late. A redesign that few love, but which has been tweaked a bit in recent weeks, the laying-off/firing of excellent writer George Ou ... you know the drill.

But now CNET has been bought by CBS for "$11.50 per share, representing an equity value of approximately $1.8 billion. The acquisition will make CBS one of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the United States, with a combined 54 million unique users per month, and approximately 200 million users worldwide."

More stories on the acquisition (via ZDNet):

• Silicon Alley Insider
• PaidContent.org

One of my favorite tech bloggers, George Ou, has been laid off from ZDNet, in yet another move by the mega-site that leaves me scratching my very head.

First they revamp their site in a way that marginalized a great many of their bloggers, making favorite writers -- and what they've written -- harder to find. OK, I'm getting used to the new look; I don't think it's an improvement in any way, but the content at ZDNet, hard to find as it now is, is in the top tier of tech news providers.

Then they get rid of one of their best writers.

George Ou might have been a Microsoft partisan, but he was -- and is -- so technically solid, that I can't believe he won't land on his feet before the week is out.

From George I learned plenty about network security, WiFi, getting the most out of hardware, as well as how to evaluate performance of PCs and their software.

I don't begrudge ZDNet's need to cut back if they're not making enough money, but cutting content lowers costs as well as quality, and it's a bad spiral. Not that it isn't happening, unfortunately, where I work, too.

For those who enjoyed his posts on ZDNet, George will update his situation at LANArchitect. I'll be checking often to see where he goes.