Archive for December, 2007
Nintendo Wii Bundle Review at Garage Sale?
So I found the “Nintendo Wii Racing Bundle with Mario Cart” bundle at a garage sale…. who would have expected! Maybe little johnny got in big trouble and parents decided to sell his toy? Anyways this is what I got!
*Mario Kart with Wheel
The venerable kart racer heads to the Wii and adds online competition to the mix.
Mario Kart Wii will include 16 new courses and 16 classic courses from previous Mario Kart games. For the first time ever, players have the option of racing with either karts or motorbikes. Players can also hit the road as their personalized Mii caricatures in addition to the handful of classic Nintendo characters found in the game. True to the series, the game features tons of racing, plenty of power-ups and oodles of objects for players to use to slow down other drivers. And 10 battle arenas will keep players busy between trips around the circuit.
The easy-to-use Wii Wheel will also be sold as a separate accessory, giving every driver in the household a chance to get behind his or her own wheel. And if veteran Mario Kart fans are afraid of getting smoked by rookie drivers using the Wii Wheel, they can rest assured that Nintendo has them covered. Mario Kart Wii supports four different control options: Wii Remote with or without the Wii Wheel, Wii Remote and Nunchuk controller combo, Classic Controller and even the Nintendo GameCube controller. So there’s bound to be a configuration that fits everyone’s style.
What Comes in the Bundle:
* Wii MarioCart Game with Wheel
* 1 Wheel for Nintendo Wii ((Wii Remote is required for use of Wheel Controller)
* Fan for Nintendo Wii
* Wii Game and System Cleaner
All for less than half price!
No commentsCollege Scholarship Facts
I received this in an email and thought it was quite interesting since I am going to college. Let me know what you guys think!
College Cost Facts
More and more high school students are attending college. According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, over sixty-five
percent of the high school graduating class of 2002 were enrolled in colleges
or universities in the fall. This proportion is 3.5 percentage points higher
than a year earlier and represents the highest rate of enrollment since 1998.
Cost of Education
During the 2003-04 academic year, college tuition and fees increased an
average of:
| * | $579 at four-year public institutions, or 14.1% |
| * | $1,114 at four-year private institutions or 6.0% |
| * | $231 at two-year public institutions or 13.8% |
Total charges, including room and board, increased 9.8% for public
institutions and 5.7% at private institutions (both due to a lower rate of
increase in room and board).
The average cost for tuition, fees, room and board at a four year public
institution averaged $10,636 in 2002-2003. The average cost for tuition, fees,
room and board at a four year private institution averaged $26,854 in
2002-2003. Although rates have increased, they do not represent a trend of
accelerated rate increases.
Financial Aid
Financial aid to students is growing. In 2002-03, $105 billion was
distributed in student financial aid, $13 billion more than distributed the
previous year.
| * | Total aid per full-time equivalent student averages about $9,100, with $3,600 of that amount in the form of grants. |
| * | Grant aid per full-time equivalent (FTE) student grew $300 or 9 percent this year, compared to a $551 or 13 percent increase in loans per FTE. |
GovernmentAid
Pell Grant funding rose by 15 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars.
However, the average Pell Grant increased only 3 percent, providing an
additional $123 per recipient. The $2,421 average Pell Grant covers less than
30 percent of average total charges (tuition and fees, room and board) at
public four-year colleges and universities, while the maximum Pell Grant
covers 41 percent of these charges.
While most federal grant aid is need-based, a decreasing portion of federal
‘from all sources’ aid is distributed according to need. Combined,
unsubsidized Stafford loans, federal loans to parents and tax credits now make
up 43 percent of total federal aid.
Institutional Aid
Institutional grants account for nearly 20 percent of student aid. These
funds have more than doubled over the past decade and make up about 62 percent
of the grant aid that undergraduates at private colleges receive, and over a
quarter of the grant aid used by those attending four-year public
institutions.
Identifying Financial Need and Awarding Financial Aid
If you will need financial aid to attend college, be attentive to the
financial aid policies of schools you are interested in attending. In some
cases, there are schools that will not consider your request for financial aid
unless you apply for financial aid at the same time that you apply for
admission. Be sure that your financial aid application arrives on time.
Calculating Need
The financial aid office will open a case file for you and perform the
following analysis. First, they will calculate the cost of your college
education for the upcoming year. That dollar amount is your ‘cost of
education’. Second, your ‘family contribution’ will be calculated based upon
the FASFA (free application for federal student aid) and, if a private
college, usually the CSS Profile (College Scholarship Service) and tax
returns. The gap between the cost of education and family contribution is
your ‘demonstrated need’.
Once the financial aid department identified the ‘demonstrated need’, they
begin to develop a financial package to offer you. Some schools notify you of
your financial aid award at the same time that your receive your admission
decision. Others send the financial aid award letter after your admission
decision letter. Some schools are able to offer incoming students with
financial need a complete financing package that covers the total cost of
education. Other schools cannot cover the whole cost and leave a ‘gap’ that
must be filled through other sources such as outside loans, etc. According to
the National Association of College Admissions Counselors, 23% of all colleges
close the “gap” based on the academic desirability of a student.
Closing the ‘Gap’
The financial aid office fills in the gap in the following order:
- Self-help funds in the form of work-study and loans. The area of loans
for school is beyond the scope of this book. However, you should be aware of
how these loans work. Go to
www.ed.gov/DirectLoan/students.html for complete information or check
with the financial aid office of your college. - Federal Pell Grant or state grants may be available for students with
very significant financial need. - Institutional funds
If there continues to be an unmet gap, (73% of the cases), the family will
typically turn to Parent Plus loans, alternative student loans and/or
scholarships to make up the difference.
Impact of Scholarships on Financial Aid
Scholarships are an excellent way top fill the gap between your need and
the college financing package. However, financial aid from all sources may not
exceed the calculated cost of education. Consequently, if you have $2,000 in
scholarships and your college offers you a full package without a gap or the
gap is only $1,000, you have an extra $1,000 that will have to be reconciled.
Many colleges allow students to use scholarship funds in excess of
calculated need to reduce the amount of loans taken. Other schools reduce
their institutional grants on a 1:1 basis with scholarship awards, thereby
destroying the incentive to seek awards. Other schools use a phased approach
where, for example, the first $500 in scholarships reduces loans and any
amount over $500 is equally split between reducing loans and reducing
institutional grants.
You must check with your school to see what their policies are regarding
outside funding. In most cases, scholarships will decrease the overall cost of
going to college.
There is also a certain amount of flexibility in financial aid packages.
So, if you think that your family’s financial need isn’t completely
represented by the usual financial analysis, make an appointment with a
financial aid counselor to review your specific situation. There may be an
opportunity to substitute more institutional grants for loans or find other
creative ways to improve your package.
Verizon BlackBerry Storm Review
So I decided I should review my newest toy for you guys.
Features and Design
The first thing you’ll notice about the Storm, is that the handset is
somewhat heavy and bulky. RIM chose to include an extended battery with this
model, presumably to appease both consumers and business users who want to: A.
watch a lot of movies and listen to music or B. surf the Web in their lonely
hotel rooms all evening. Translation: Size-wise, it’s a beast. The Storm weighs
almost 5.5 ounces (5.46 to be exact) and measures 4.4” x 2.4” x .55” (LxWxD), or
almost a half-inch thick. Read: It’s a rock in a pants pocket and doesn’t work
that well in your shirt pocket either, however if you are more interested in
battery life than weight, this will not bother you..
There are just a handful of hardware buttons on the Storm: A phone dial and
end call button; the menu key ; escape key; a voice dial button on the left
side; a camera button on the right side; a lock and a mute button on top; and
volume controls that are located on the right side. Both the lock and mute
buttons are easy to miss because they are recessed into the casing.
Setup and Use
Here is what you get for the low, low price of $200 (plus Verizon Wireless
contract): The Storm includes a 3.2 megapixel camera; GPS with voice navigation;
1GB of on-board memory; a battery that lasts six hours; a bright 3.25” 480×360
color display that supports over 65,000 colors; Bluetooth 2.0 with stereo audio;
GSM and EV-DO Rev A; a microSD slot; and a standard size 3.5mm headphone jack (earbud
headphones included).
So, how could you go wrong with all of these features? For starters, the main
issue with the Storm is that the touchscreen is very hard to use, even with some
practice. Be aware: When you poke an on-screen prompt, you are pressing down on
the entire screen as if it were a button itself (almost like clicking on a
mouse), and the phone is registering where you prod, which is a bit odd at
first, but I soon began to love.
Moving right along, if you turn the phone to the side, the Storm will switch
to landscape mode automatically (using the accelerometer) with a full keyboard.
RIM offers a few neat tricks – you can hover your finger over the cursor to
“pick it up” and move it to another part of a field and enjoy a simple way to
search for email addresses. The Storm does not support multi-touch gestures,
however, so you can’t zoom in by spreading out two fingers on the screen. To
zoom in, you instead tap the screen twice and, to zoom out, you press Escape..
Extra Features and Functions
You’re in for a treat, as the Storm is a very capable smartphone – one of the
best ever made, in fact.
Network
It runs on the EV-Do Rev A network, which means (at least in the areas we
tested the device) speeds approached 1 Mbps for Internet browsing and e-mail. We
pulled up a YouTube video (at m.youtube.com) and had one playing in seconds,
albeit in low-resolution, though, in a sweet turn, there were no pauses or
annoying stutters. Other sites such as ESPN.com and IGN.com loaded
lightning-fast as well, even though the Storm (unlike the iPhone) does not
support Adobe Flash. No matter – text and graphics still loaded quickly and
accurately in the fully HTML-aware browser, even for rich content sites and
video sites like YouTube.
Camera
Also bear in mind that the phone’s camera is a major plus. We took a series
of pictures inside and out and were impressed with the results. The Storm goes
into a quick auto-focus mode that helps make sure images are clear, and for
inside shots, there’s even a handy light that illuminates the subject matter.
Whereas the iPhone and even the Nokia N96’s photos look muddy and dull, shots on
the Storm looked bright and clear. Videos also appeared bright and crisp, and it
was great recording them to the handset’s spacious 1GB internal memory.
GPS
GPS capability worked perfectly during a long road trip too. The voice
prompts were clear and accurate, utilizing Verizon’s VZ Navigator program. You
can even look up nearby movies, find routes and look at maps, avoid traffic
delays, and send a message from the GPS client with an automatic note stating
when you will arrive at a meeting. We also liked that, when you click up or down
on the volume buttons, the GPS client changes the voice by gradation – dwindling
from loud voice to medium voice and so on.
Call Quality
More importantly, calls on the Storm sounded very clear and tonally rich from
our perspective. The receiving end – e.g. the person we were talking to – said
the call sounded a bit digital or robotic. That’s typical of BlackBerry devices
though, which use a high-quality speaker and an average-quality microphone for
talking. Talk time lasted for two days of casual use, and about six hours of
near-constant use. Honestly, it’s an amazing feat, because the iPhone and
G1 will die if you use them consistently for just a few hours in one sitting. By
comparison, we used the Storm all morning to talk to friends, browse the Web and
even get driving directions and only one bar on the battery icon was gone,
AMAZING
Media Capabilities
As a media phone, the Storm beats the G1 by far, and ties iPhone’s celebrated
multimedia capabilities. You can quickly load music and movies onto the device
using BlackBerry media management software – it even supports file conversion
from iTunes. We loaded 200 music files onto a MicroSD card and they sounded
clear and crisp using the included earbud headphones. Even the external speaker
on the Storm is not very “BlackBerry-ish” in that it is actually worth using.
(Note that the G1 doesn’t even have a video player and is somewhat limited for
music as well, although it is very easy to buy Amazon MP3 files.) What we didn’t
like about the Storm for media, however, is that there is no Apple iTunes
equivalent – a really powerful music and movie organizer that would let you dump
tracks onto the device with ease.
Conclusion
There’s is a bit of improvement that could be made on the touch screen
keyboard. The Storm would be winning awards for call quality, media
support, miscellaneous extras, a high-quality camera and built-in GPS – after
all, it is an uber-phone at a decently low price. But know this before taking
the plunge: Thumb-punching maniac typists may have a bit of a learning
experience to get back up to full speed..
Pros:
• Amazing call quality
• High quality camera
• Built-in GPS
• Good media support
• Lots of extras
Cons:
• Typing can be difficult
• Interface was slow a few times
No commentsApple iPhone 2.0 Review (Two Thumbs Up)
So I got to borrow an iPhone 2.0 from my friend since he knew I was trying to decide between this and a blackberry storm. I figured this would make a good review post.
iPhone 3G The Good:Faster download speeds
Talk and get data simultaneously
New, lower priceSupport for third-party applications
Integrated GPS
The Bad:
Still a 2-megapixel camera
Limited GPS functionality
Still exclusive to AT&T
The Price:
US$199 – 8G
BUS$299 – 16GB
If you look at the iPhone 3G, perhaps you wouldn’t think it’s too different from its predecessor. But looks can be deceiving. And in the case of the iPhone 3G, they’re likely to be very deceiving indeed: the video iPhone 3G looks to be a big jump past the original iPhone.
From its faster Internet connection to its support for GPS and third-party applications – video to iphone 3G converter to its lower price, the iPhone 3G looks to be a major upgrade.
Many things about the iPhone 3G are the same: a 2-year contract with AT&T (subsidized upgrades are available to all iPhone owners and new AT&T customers, as well as select other customers), support for all the same widgets and firmware features, the terrific multi-touch screen, and intelligent sensors that determine whether the phone is near your head and shuts off the screen and the one that knows whether the phone is oriented horizontally or vertically.
And while those familiar features are nice, the video iPhone 3G’s changes should really make the device shine.
A Great Phone Gets even Better. The phone features of the original iPhone didn’t leave too many people complaining (though it’s still missing voice dialing, a feature I’d like). Visual Voicemail felt like a breakthrough (though perhaps it wasn’t quite as useful as its hype would have suggested) and features such as three-way calling were a snap to use. While call quality was decent, more advanced cell phone features sucas MMS messaging or certain Bluetooth features were not available.
The phone features on the iPhone 3G have all the same strengths and even add one: improved call quality. Because the iPhone 3G uses the 3G phone network which carries more data faster, the call quality when connected to a 3G network should be superior.
Overall if you have the chance to get this phone, please do, you will not regret it!
I found a website giving out free apple gift certificates and it seems fairly easy to do. Click the image below to check it out!
Flycell Review
I rarely sign up for services like this, however I finally decided to spice my phone up. I signed up for Flycell via a banner like the one below and filled out my info picked my songs and bam I was rocking new tunes withing minutes. I was surprised how quick painless and cheap it truly was. I always heard people complaining about ringtone services, well call me lucky, but the first service I signed up for worked flawlessly, which is why if you ever need ringtones in the future, I recommend you add Flycell to your list of possible ringtone sources.
