Posted 9:10 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Stafford Loan Rates go from 2.8% to 4.7% in July; Consolidate Now!
Passing along some useful information I received from the Michigan financial aid office. It seems that the Department of Education resets the student loan interest rates every July, so if your Federal Loans are floating rate, you'll get a huge rate hike in a month. That is, unless you consolidate to a fixed rate loan now.

The details:

This is a reminder that you have only until the end of June to consolidate your Federal Direct Stafford Loans in order to lock in the current
in-school/grace period interest rate of 2.78%. We recommend that you apply for consolidation by June 27, 2005 to ensure your application will be processed before the July 1, 2005 interest rate increase. Rates at that time will increase to 4.7% for the in-school/grace period rate and 5.3% in repayment. By consolidating NOW, you can SAVE UP TO 10% over the life of your loan!

HOW TO APPLY:
Consolidation is combining your variable rate Direct Loans into one loan at a FIXED INTEREST RATE (you may consolidate even if you have only one loan). Apply for consolidation online in as little as 8 minutes at the U.S. Department of Education's Direct Loan Servicer website:
http://www.dlssonline.com/consolidatenow/welcome.asp.
There is no charge to consolidate. To complete the application, you will need to refer to your monthly loan statements and your borrower account information; see the View Student Loan Summary page of Wolverine Access at https://wolverineaccess.umich.edu.

Consider this a friendly public service announcement to the other Class of '05ers out there.

Posted 1:09 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Updated: Cell Phone Ordering: LetsTalk vs WireFly
Since both my wife's and my Verizon Wireless contracts expired on Monday, we both got new cell phones, a new carrier, and ported the number. We haven't had any major problems with Verizon Wireless, but, with probably three or four international trips--work and personal--on the horizon, we wanted GSM tri-band phones that we could used in Europe and Japan (what is GSM? see this article).

In the US, that limited us to T-Mobile or Cingular, since Verizon Wireless and Sprint don't sell GSM phones. I chose T-Mobile because 1. I'm a satisfied T-Mobile HotSpot customer, 2. in my image, T-Mobile has the better network abroad, 3. both offer good coverage of New York, and 4. they had the phones that we wanted.

As it were, WireFly.com offered the phone and service plan I wanted for free, while LetsTalk.com offered the phone and service plan my wife wanted at the better price. Here's how the two very similar looking sites stacked up:

	LetsTalk.com	WireFly.com
Site Ease of Use	Very good	Very good
Phone & Price	Motorola A630 $99	Blackberry 7230 Free
Time to Port Phone Numbers	2 hours	2 days
Time to Receive Phones After Order	1 day	3 days
Time to New Phone Activation After Order	1 day	6 days
Irritations	None	FedEx misplaced my delivery, adding an extra 3 days to the delivery time. The WireFly.com customer service rep was not friendly when I called about getting my delivery fee reimbursed.

The conclusion I'd draw from this is, if the prices are the same on the two sites, LetsTalk.com will get your new phone up and running faster.

Update 1: In fairness, not 30 minutes after FedEx told me I wouldn't get the package until Monday, it showed up [Friday afternoon]. That doesn't change the fact that the WireFly.com customer service rep was kind of ornery.

Update 2: In first impressions, when comparing my new Blackberry versus my wife's new Motorola A630, I feel like I chose the boring, efficient engineering tool and she chose the sleek, cool jukebox. I was surprised and disappointed to find the Blackberry still doesn't have polyphonic ring tones (it's stuck with beeps and flat tones); I had so wanted to download the Michigan Fight Song as my ringtone.

That said, after a day of use, I'm starting to warm up to the Blackberry. It was a cinch to set up email accounts, and the screen and keyboard size is ideal for messaging. With all its bells and whistles, the interface for the Motorola is more confusing, and we still haven't gotten email working on it.

So, although it lacks the sex appeal, I think the Blackberry will prove the better choice for business and personal use in the end.

Update 3: Donate your old cell phones! Call to Protect is a group that "collects wireless phones to benefit victims of domestic violence. Proceeds from the sale of phones help fund agencies that fight domestic violence and are also used to support the educational efforts of the Wireless Foundation. Other phones are refurbished and become lifelines for domestic violence victims when faced with an emergency situation."

Since we're now up to 5 old cell phones sitting unused in our apartment, I'll be making a donation shortly.

Posted 11:29 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Sweet and Sour
The past week, my mornings were filled with:

Although it's not the closest golf course or driving range, I usually make the fifteen minute drive East to Ypsilanti's Pine View Golf Course. Reasons: 1. the driving range isn't crowded (important when you're a beginner), 2. it's away from town, and thus more peaceful, 3. the driving range is less expensive than others, and 4. habit--it's where I took my first golf lessons last Fall.

Of course, the rest of the day is spent at home, packing boxes for the move. After several false dawns, I do think that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. Really.

Sigh.