binary log file questions

[rps]

I am using MySQL 4.1.12 on linux.

Can the binary log file get corrupted? If it were to get copied off to another server while it's being written to, the copied version could be corrupt, yes?

So I should flush the logs, then copy over the closed binary file. Is there an easy way to tell which bin file is the one to copy? I'd like to automate this in a script.

What do you think of having the log file on another machine? I could map a drive using Samba or NFS, and then have the binary log file be written to there. Could it corrupt, say if the server lost power in the middle of writing to it?

What I would like to accomplish is to have a backup every night of all my databases, and then incremental backups every 5 minutes or so. I've been doing a lot of searching but have not come across a solution yet. I will be using MyISAM and Innodb tables so this futher complicates things (like being able to use mysqldump for the nightly backup).

Thanks for any help.
-Ryan