I await the arrival of a new laptop and my first priority will be to have Ubuntu 10.04 installed on it ideally with a separate /home partition. I will be keeping windows as I am forced to use it for Audible & iTunes.
Can you advise if it is possible to establish the /home partition at the time of installation of 10.04 as a dual boot. If it is possible to do this then the next question is how to shift the old /home folder from the old system to the new.
Both the old and new laptops will have a wireless connection to my network if that assists.
If you could offer guidance on this can it include information on how I should allocate space between the different OS and /home. I was thinking that the maximum I would want to give windows would be in the region of 25-30% of the HD.
Yes a separate /home can be created during the installation… this would actually be the best, easiest and “proper” way to do it.
As long as both versions of Ubuntu are the same, moving the old home to the new PC should simply be as easy as copying its contents (including hidden files)… as long as the 2 accounts have the same UID, otherwise you’ll need to change the owner:group too.
Instructions/suggestions on allocation of space and partitioning scheme would be fairly pointless ATM because at a guess the Laptop will come with 3 (or more) “primary” partitions… you can only have 4 “primary” partitions, which would exclude /home on its own partition and a separate swap partition… so you’ll have to create an “extended” partition to contain the / and /home and swap partitions.
So we would need to see the layout of the drive before commenting on the best way forward… but I can say what you are planning is possible, and quite easy… if that helps 
Give us a shout when you have the new Laptop and we’ll take it from there.