Unfortunately, no. This isn’t necessarily an assumption made by the Dept. of Education, but rather another figure to separate traditional and non-traditional students to throttle the Pell grant. By regulation, parents’ willingness to support you cannot be circumstances of appeal. You can appeal to be considered…

Former Financial Aid Director here. The Dept. of Ed. sees student employment income as applying directly to your education (even though you get the check).. This means that the income can be excluded from next year’s income on your FAFSA application since it was already used for school.

The Synology 214 was the best investment I ever made. I made this purchase a few months ago with the exact same HDDs. While it has some great items ready to go, I also added OwnCloud and Wordpress. If you convince a friend/relative to pick one up, too, you can raid between homes (eg. each of you have 2 3tb drives and…

It wouldn't be a bad Lightroom machine at all. Thinking of tossing a copy on mine, actually. If you're working in RAW, you may want to consider a SSD for breezy browsing, though.

Yes, you can always spend more money, but put it toward what you would use.

Too bad fsx doesn't have an accurate physics engine. More or less a video game. If you want an experience closer to actual flying, x-plane works wonders.

Excellent post! As an aid administrator for a public college, I applaud advertising repayment plans. It's very difficult to get this information in front of students and you'd be surprised at how many students ignore these options. A little paperwork can go a long way!

128GB deal died just as I was reading the reviews.

There are no financial aid deadlines on January 1st. That is when next year's application becomes available. Deadline for the current academic year isn't until June 30th, 2014. Some states have a deadline for state aid, but none of those are Jan 1st, either. - Financial Aid Administrator

Came here to say this

No problem! Here are some thoughts behind my choices if you do some additional hunting:

I took the liberty of updating your under $500 HTPC build to today's offerings with some nice bonuses like easy NAS expandability. Like convenience? You can get all of these parts at Amazon with Prime. Sub-$500 HTPC at your door in two days with free shipping.

Xbox: TOCsoldier

Hugely helpful, thanks!

I'm having a hard time understanding the server side of things. I have an external hooked up through my router containing my video files. I just point XBMC on my Apple TV to the networked location and I'm done. Is the XBMC server on my Apple TV then?

Flying. I'm a private pilot (as a hobby) and the tablet lets me carry all of my maps, airport directories, publications, flight plans, weight and balance, and checklists all on my lap. I just strap my iPad 3 on my knee, tap the airport I want to go to, and boom, weather briefing, fuel usage, ETA, alternate airports,…

I've been gearing up to ask for a raise and think this charts sums it up nicely. I have been interviewing for other jobs that I'd be comfortable moving into, even if they are a lateral move and plan to take an offer to my boss and ask for a raise, bonus, or a contractual partial telecommute option. I love my job, but…

Son of a .....

Is there a practical server option that can compete with the $200-300 (diskless) price point of a Synology NAS?

My thoughts are that follow-ups are nice, but don't impact my hiring decisions. That's just me though. I feel that there's so much tension around the follow-up that I'm not going to hold it against the person if they don't do it.