An MBA might qualify you for management in your field, and it also gives you a parachute to use if you either don't like the field or find yourself out of work. Also, there are 17 month MBA programs available. I got mine at Franklin University, Columbus, OH, in 17 months with one evening class per week and a fair amount of homework, mostly essay writing and group projects. I spent at least a few hours one evening a week for homework, sometimes on two evenings. Most group work was done by email. Most of the time I was the editor of the group papers to pull it all together so that it appeared to be written int he same style by the same person (which helps get a better grade than something that is hastily thrown together and doesn't transition well between the contributed parts).

Be aware that with a master's degree of any sort, you should expect to see more group work, something that I didn't care for since the group can pull you down and some might use the group to try to get a free ride with their work. If that latter thing happens, make sure that the instructor knows about it, make up for that person's lack of contribution to the project, and move on. That way the group is less likely to take a hit on the grade, but someone must make up for the slacker.

Also, don't expect a master's degree to make a big entry level salary. But it should get you more respect from interviewers and probably a somewhat higher salary over what you would get without one. If you get an MBA, you can work into your career interviews that you would like to get into management eventually once you have proven yourself to your superiors.

One other thing I would mention if you have any elective credits to earn yet is to look into experiential learning credits. I earned about a year's worth of college credits in my undergrad work that way and it didn't cost me anything but the effort to document my experiential learning. I got into a routine where I could crank out one documentation "booklet" in a day or two and get 3 credit hours for the work, even a course waiver if it was for one of my required subjects. I got out of a lot of schooling by doing that!!!

Donald

I forgot to add that you could instead ask the original owner to make the call and do the transfer of the account (or add you to the account, whatever it is that they wanted you to do.)

Write the company and explain your situation. Include copies of your eBay and Pay Pal invoices. Explain that this is not a warranty concern, that you just want to buy the part, you do not expect them to supply it for free. Many times writing a letter will get to the right people and you will get action. It's possible that this could be phrased in a way that your state's attorney general would be interested in sending a letter to them. If you get a negative response, I would pursue that next. Include a copy of your complaint, the original letter to AlienWare, and send an update to the company letting them know that you want this to be investigated as an unfair sales practice (or something like that). If you want to go full guns right away, file your complaint and then send a copy of that with your letter telling them that since they refuse to sell parts that are available for the unit to you, you are pursing legal action against them through your state's attorney general. But I think that the gentler approach might be best, then take further action only if necessary. You might find that someone will give you what you want when they see documentation that you paid for the unit and that it hasn't been reported as stolen.

If software developers had to provide a timely fix or your money back (their choice), the free software developers would be free from legal liability. Or just make the law apply to non-free software. I see one issue with the law. Let's say program 1 and program 2 conflict with each other in some way, maybe making the OS freeze, freeze the program, or freeze the other program, or both programs freeze when both are running. Program developer 1 says it's program 2's fault, program developer 2 says it's program 1's fault. An example is that I cannot get my Canon ZoomBrowser EX software for my digital camera to work,a nd to date their support people have not (yet) been able to help me fix the problem. (I can import and view pictures with either Windows Photo Gallery or use Fspot in Linux without any trouble.) Since it worked a while ago (I hadn't used it for a while), it is probably a conflict with another program. I can see each developer saying that it is the other program that is the problem. Even Canon mentioned that I might have to disable any drivers that access a scanner, like my MP210 multifiunction printer, scanner, and copier (I didn't have the driver installed at that time since it wouldn't install-another issue that I fixed myself since then). In this case, if I was not satisfied with the crashing picture browser software, would I be eligible for a complete refund of my camera, or would the software be considered "free" and therefore the company would not be liable for the problem? I can see this would be more a Windows software related problem than in Linux, and probably not common in the Mac OS either. This law could stifle innovation, I think, if some limits are not placed on how liable the developers are, and if the individual coder is to blame, it will possibly cause even more problems. Good coders would require higher salaries, and that might drive software costs up. Then again, maybe this would get rid of the bad coders and solve the problems we're seeing in poorly coded software.

I browse You Tube occasionally (once a month perhaps) and would definitely NOT pay for viewing amateur videos there. How would I know if it's worth whatever small price I would be charged BEFORE I view the video? It wouldn't take long, in my opinion, for people to get tired of paying for so-so videos and just give up and go elsewhere. The attraction is that it's free. Take that away, at any small price, and I think that the business model will fail. All the $$$ Google invested in You Tube will be lost. Well, most of it, maybe. There will be a few people who have lots of money and won't care how much they spend. But many people are suffering right now because of the wrecked economy caused by the greed of the people who once ran (or are still running) the monetary system. I for one am not working every week. But if I was, I still would not pay for you Tube content unless I had some guarantee that I would find it worthwhile. I would either give up what You Tube has to offer or go elsewhere if there are alternatives. And I think that people who put their videos on You Tube would decide to put them elsewhere if they knew that only a few people would be viewing their content instead of becoming "famous" because millions raved over something they put there.

Why not set up a dual boot machine? You could install Linux on a separate partition and let GRUB handle the choice between which OS to boot to at startup. You could even set up two XP partitions, and use something like NeoSmart Technologies' Easy BCD as a boot manager. I use it in my Vista partition to allow me to boot to Linux when I want to, and it works pretty well, but you can also use it to choose between different Windows installations. That way, the partition with all of the suspect Active-X controls and such would be separated from the good Windows partition. The only problem with using Windows for both operating systems is that malware might "see" the other Windows partition and cause problems. Of course, it might also "see" a Linux partition, but unless it destroys data, it probably won't find anything useful to exploit there. Just my 2 cents, subject to inflation.

Be sure to make a copy of the tape if you do this. Also, be aware that some companies have a policy of not allowing tape recordings made without prior permission from management. Once, after I left a prior job, I found out from an employee there that management left a tape recorder inside the napkin holder in the vendateria to eavesdrop on conversations when there was some talk of a union organizing effort. An employee found it and returned it to HR. I would just have taken it and figured that it was mine to keep since it shouldn't have been there in the first place. I would have liked to see the face of the HR fellow when it was given to him and heard his explanation.