I spent a lot of time researching online schools. I decided that Baker (http://www.baker.edu/) was the best option for me. It's the biggest private, nonprofit, school in Michigan and has a Computer Science program that is worth it. The price per credit is only a little higher than going to a brick and mortar school where I live. I got my Associates in Computer Programming back in December and I'm working on my Bachelors now. The learning is more of a self taught environment. You're given the weekly notes from the instructor, the chapters to read, and the assignments for the week. You have to participate on a forum by answering weekly discussion questions and helping each other out. This works best for me since I'm a visual leaner. I read all the material and do the assignments and take the tests. If I didn't do that I wouldn't be able to pass the class. Most of the instructors have years of experience in the real world work force with degrees to backup their knowledge.

In my experience Baker does things right. I have a few friends who took a Computer Science degree at the local college. They learned a few different things but their knowledge of the subject is far less than mine. I attribute it to the fact that most of the homework was group projects and they usually let one person do all the work.

There was a time when they were semi decent. Last night I found out the hard drive on an XPS 1210 I have was failing. Their diagnostics even stated that. This is where it all went down hill.

1. The laptop still has 200+ days of warranty. One part of the site says it has none, the other shows how much is left.

2. Talked to tech support. What was supposed to be a specialized XPS support group was nothing more than a guy who didn't listen or speak English.

3. He told me that the hard drive was not bad but I had a virus on it. I also just got done reinstalling Windows. I'm not sure how hardware diagnostics can even detect a virus. (I know Windows is prone to viruses, but come on a fresh load and I have a virus before I do anything.)

4. This isn't the first time they gave me hell. The first laptop I had to have them service, they sent to the wrong address when shipping it back. So they had to send me a refurbished unit because they lost mine.

I didn't read the whole article but I didn't think I had to after the first page. The companies I have worked for would never outsource the IT department or the data center. They would feel they would lose control over it. Also IT will always be around, 90% of end users don't want to fix anything they just want to call someone and have them do it for them.