In preparation for the work that I will hopefully start soon, I have been searching for forums and blogs about PhDs and found a great place which has already been of help. I joined their forum as a prospective student and asked a question in the forum about where to find archives of successful theses. I received a reply within minutes, garnished with words of encouragement.
Check out the link below for everything you can imagine you would need to know about doing a PhD and click the link on the top right hand corner for the Postgrad Forum.
Link: http://www.findaphd.com/
PhD Diary 