Archive for August, 2008

Get into Axia or University of Phoenix fast

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

You can get into Axia, otherwise known as the University of Phoenix very quick.

How quick?

They, the Enrollment Counselor at Phoenix will walk you through on the phone and tell you what to click in order to get your MPN, otherwise known as your Master Promissory Note. This MPN is what locks you into the loans you are asking for, like subsidized and unsubsidized loans. You will get immediate help and be nudged into getting it done quickly.

The University of Phoenix are a polite staff that have a deferment policy that forces you to sign a MPN with their list of Lenders. This list, if you do not choose one on it will force you to wait until fianancial aid comes to start. There are good lenders on the list, I had no problems with Wells Fargo for instance. The nudging gets _HARD_ at this point for you to sign as you are one step closer to being locked into paying loans.

Franklin.edu on the other hands forces you to take a test in order to sign the MPN. This test makes you understand all the aspects of the MPN and what you will expect in the future. Phoenix does not force you to answer questions, rather, they just ask that you agree  without expecting you to show knowledge about the subject.

If you want to know what you are getting into, Franklin will test you on the subject of borrowing money. Phoenix will show you the information and quickly speak on the phone to get you started but requires no testing of the pitfalls of Stafford loans.

Franklin is looking out for you as there exists the possibility you might not understand what is going on. I must concur at this point that Phoenix, while good for some students, is interested in money first then education. I received my education the first year but can fully understand why some did not and are left with bills to pay.

Posted in Axia, Business Practices, Disclaimer, Franklin University, Horrible Support, School, University of Phoenix | No Comments »

The Magic Jack is just that: Magic

Monday, August 25th, 2008

You see the hype and hear from your friends: “The Magic Jack is great” but I do not agree. I had a client tell me it was great device only to learn he returned during the trial too. He had the same problem I encountered: I could not make a call.

The technical glitches are varied, but my complaint was that you seemed to have to perform Magic to get it to work. My wife had to press “end” on the client that runs on your computer in order to make a call while repeated dialing attempts returned me to dial tone.

What good is $19.95 a year phone service when you simply cannot make a call at least %50 of the time? Two out of the three times I tried to use the Magic Jack, it failed to dial or required multiple tries. When I tried to RMA the unit, I got a “page not found” and had to click twice to get the page to load. The failure to call when trying and multiple attempts to RMA is just laughable and evidence for me it is a waste of time.

By the way, my RMA # is near the 200,000 mark. Does it seem odd that if they sold 2,000,000 of the units and 200,000 RMA numbers are out there it might be a bit of Magic in advertising? Time will tell if I get my monies refunded but if it does not return, Magic will make my complaint appear here.

Posted in Business Practices, Hardware | No Comments »

Is Chantix a scam?

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

I hope to elaborate later on Chantix, how it helped me and especially the words from a medical student who shall remain forever anonymous except for this statement:

The following three things are true of smoking:

1. You get poor
2. You get sick
3. Tobacco companies make money

I could of course add a fourth:

4. You get cancer, if you believe in that sort of thing.

I might have screwed up the words a bit, but I hope you get the point. Put down the stick of sick and live a free live.

Zero Smoke.

Posted in Business Practices, Champix, Chantix, Quit Smoking, Smoking, Tobacco | No Comments »

Differences still

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Franklin.edu has a distinction of having two pages of information about preferred lenders. Franklin University takes lengthy time to explain the difference in types of loans and the reasons some charges happen when you take money.

Axia has no such page when you are rushing through the pages, just an enrollment officer trying to push you to sign today. They also refuse to defer your tuition unless you choose one of their preferred lenders. Franklin claims no such distinction, instead just promotes it is faster.

Posted in Axia, Business Practices, College, Disclaimer, Franklin | No Comments »

John Yancey just needs to understand

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

In a CNN story about wind turbines John Yancey talks about life staying the same way. He speaks of shadows and noise that upsets his sleep. Get some insulation, earplugs or play some ambient noise. Find a solution instead of bickering.

Listen Mr. Yancey…. for a person that is so tough I lived next to a church that had a loudspeaker play bells for up to an hour every Sunday. Guess what happened after I stopped complaining about them? I didn’t notice the sounds any longer when I stopped bickering.  I’ve heard turbines and the sound I have heard pales in comparison to the speaker system that blasted bells less than 50 feet from my bedroom that was underground. It was louder than my 15″ sub woofers.

If you want your life to stay the same, namely not live in a scorched earth that can no longer sustain life then you should just quit complaining. Your father is doing what is economically, enviromentally and just plain right. I hope my son does not hate me when he gets a small electric car that hums too loud and is not an atmosphere nightmare.

Shame, you hate your father for trying to make money and help save the world. Would you rather have no world to complain about? You sound a lot like Mark Cuban so I have to wonder if you two are related.

Posted in Blindness, Business Practices, Mark Cuban | 2 Comments »

I will take google desktop for now

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Being the obvious fan boy of Google that I am, there is a wondering if I could ever have a need for a 10 million document database. Forget Live search of your own machine… I can’t find anything useful using live.com but Google Desktop helps me find my personal data with a ctrl ctrl easily.

I do shudder the day when I have enough space to hold 10 million documents.

Posted in Google, Hardware, Internet, Teraflop | No Comments »

A non smoker with Chantix two years later

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

I have been nicotine free now for almost two years. In this time I have helped hundreds of people achieve their own success stories by sharing my thoughts and giving advice on side effects. I have only been forced to not allow one post in this two years, mostly due to the negative tone and the insistence that Chantix had changed them.

Two years later we see a little news that Chantix carries a suicide risk and may cause mental illness. I am not your doctor so you can never take my facts and use them as medical advice. The only thing one can say about Chantix is that it has helped you quit smoking and people who quit smoking go through a lot of problems as they adjust to addiction.

Using Chantix could cause the very same side effects if you used a negative reinforcement method to stop. I have blogged before about the more than 4,000 chemicals that are in smoke. Some refuse to take this one pill due to the media and continue to ingest those chemicals. If you can make it rational that the 4,000 chemicals  in smoke are ok, there is no therapy that I know of which would help you stop.

I would take Chantix again if my blog doesn’t help me to stay smoke free. In these two years there has only been an urge four times to smoke, but it was easily dismissed as not a real need. Will I make it to four years? If this blog is still here it serves as a reminder of all the pain we go through to quit and is a paper weight that helps to stop the years of nicotine abuse from flying into my face.

May you all still read and post your stories, as I had no idea it would serve everyone else the way it has.

Posted in Champix, Chantix, Health, HowTo, Quit Smoking, Smoking, Tobacco, Varenicline | 1 Comment »

A picture is worth at least $900

Friday, August 8th, 2008

So, I have a career in IT that has spanned over 15 years. Recently as some that read my blog may know, I started the path to having a college degree. I chose the University of Phoenix just because it seemed to be the best way to get in right away.

The UoP and the Axia branch are really fast at getting you enrolled. There is no proficiency exams and the pressure to sign a MPN is intense. The enrollment counselor was relentless in getting me enrolled. This does not mean the college is bad alone, just merely that they wish to have as many students possible.

I had a ‘facilitator’ that I could call during classes but only during certain hours of the day. There is an email address for personal and also internal communication. I will note that my last facilitator, Crystal McFall would take vacations during the class and not be able to respond to emails or phone calls. That was the straw on my so called educational back that broke it.

One thing bothered me in my last classes:  proof that the facilitators are real. Just words about their lives and a phone number that was at times even posted wrong. I for one did not let that bother me, I learned a great deal and made a good grade at most of what I did. After I had done several assignments, I had a past teacher read the syllabus and the grading sheet. I was assured it checked out to her academic standards.

I am a Franklin University student now due to the problems that Axia will simply not address. Counselors and even facilitators are not punished publicly since you are not told what the result of any investigation is. Yes, you will not even be told that the employee was punished. Even the local school systems have public meetings to discuss this type of problem and there is no hiding.

In closing, my first Franklin class has already impressed me. I logged in since the classes are available a week before they start and much to my surprise…. a PICTURE of (get this) my Professor!  I was already impressed with the CD material that arrived in which I was getting offline guidance for that class… the University of Phoenix does not do that.

I was happy at Axia until I started to realize that if the problem occurred again, I had no recourse. Switching to Franklin just might be the best thing yet. Axia is more expensive and a whole lot of problems that just are not addressed. Call Franklin if you are considering a degree and then call Phoenix. All my credits should transfer, which is good. What is bad? I do have to attend a couple audio chat or video sessions with my Professor.

Axia facilitators discouraged the use of voice chat in any way due to “overwhelming” students. Franklin does it right off the bat. You decide which one is better.

Feel free to post your comments with how you feel. I do not wish to discuss how you lost money at Phoenix as there is many ways a student can fail and slip through the cracks due to being helped so much to get enrolled.

Posted in Axia, College, Franklin, Horrible Support, School, University of Phoenix, UoP | No Comments »

Negative reinforcement as a smoking deterrent

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

I know a lot of people don’t think this is really going to work I thought to myself when my friend told me about it. It’s a free way to start yourself down the road of not smoking at all.

Take a rubber band (or many) and produce pain by pulling then and slapping it on the wrist. Hurts huh?

Do it if you even think of smoking. I stopped for three months.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Chuck Norris

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

Chuck Norris only plays golf and Russian roulette with God and Stephen Hawking

Chuck Norris killed both of Schrödinger’s cats

Posted in chucknorris | No Comments »