Happy New Year!
Now go file your FAFSA!
+ FAFSA form online filing at FAFSAonline.com
Reminders
+ Private student loans
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student loans
+ Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ FAFSA form online filing at FAFSAonline.com
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidNews.com.
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email me at financialaidpodcast {at} gmail {dot} com, visit http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com. AIM: FinAidPodcast Add me to your iTunes by visiting http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com/itunes/
Direct MP3 file download: MP3 file
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This was a funny moment. Financial Aid Podcast listener Leah Lage and I were sitting in Crayonville’s diner, talking about new media. A funny conversation ensued.

Jeff Pulver and Chris Brogan ask: Review 2006.
1. Most Useful application
2. Best Web site
3. Worst Web site
4. Hottest Trend
5. Favorite Gadget
1. Garageband and iTunes. Making a good quality podcast has never been easier.
2. Google Reader. With over 400 different feeds in one interface, picking the pieces of the news I want is easy.
3. It’s a tie. MySpace and Digg. Infested with spyware, malware, and general idiocy, MySpace’s only redeeming value is its gigantic user community. Digg proves once and for all that the wisdom of the crowds is overrated – …

Student Financial Aid News
+ Crickets!
+ In a move that is attracting praise, Stanford University announced this month that it is starting a new program in which every faculty member in the humanities — pre- or post-tenure — will receive $5,000 a year to spend on any research-related need. Faculty members will be able to use the funds for travel to scholarly conferences or archives, to hire research assistants for bibliographic work, or for any related reason.
+ A Congressional aide has been fired after contacting two people authorities say he believed …

Student Financial Aid News
+ Boy is it quiet out there!
+ Nearly 2.3 million students received degrees from four-year colleges and about 557,000 earned degrees from community colleges in the 2004-5 academic year, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Education Department.
+ The report, “Postsecondary Institutions in the United States: Fall 2005 and Degrees and Other Awards Conferred: 2004-05,” provides a first look at the latest data on college costs and degree attainment that the Education Department has collected through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The system, commonly …

… FiOS. Goodbye cable modem. Hello fiber optic internet connection and 20 Mbps downstream.
I downloaded Rocketboom HD tonight. Couldn’t watch it – the PowerPC G4 can’t keep up with 1080i. But it downloaded in 34 seconds.
Jeff Pulver and Chris Brogan – the future is astonishingly fast. 5 Mbps upstream means I can upload video in a reasonable amount of time. Video on the Net just got a whole lot more practical at my house.
Downside… I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. Nothing against SLN, but a 3 Mbps DSL …

Student Financial Aid News
+ Robert T. Stafford, the long-serving Republican senator from Vermont who played such a major role in shaping the guaranteed-student-loan program that his Senate colleagues named the program for him, died December 23 at the age of 93.
+ A Republican, Stafford served two years as governor, 11 years in the House and 17 in the Senate before retiring in 1988.
+ He also dedicated himself to education from his perch on the Senate Subcommittee on Education, Arts and the Humanities. Congress saluted his dedication in 1988, renaming the …

A special episode of the Financial Aid Podcast talking about the top stories of 2006.
10. Housing bubble burst
9. Democratic election of Congress
+ Explosion of private student loans
8. Graduate PLUS loan program created
7. MyRichUncle came out swinging against traditional FFELP practices
6. No more credit cards to pay tuition
5. Federal reserve levels off rates after 2 1/2 years of interest rate increases
4. Investigation of Sallie Mae and other major lenders
3. Explosion of scams regarding scholarships, loans, etc.
2. Identity theft rockets upward
1. Major program changes
+ End of the two step student loan consolidation
+ …

The great reboot is coming. On January 1, 2007, at midnight, I will execute the following:

Select All in GMail. Archive.
Select All feeds in Reader. Mark as read.
Select all unread in Mail.app. Move to read.
Clear browser histories.
Archive all bookmarks and reload.

Starting off a new year means getting rid of old stuff, good or bad. Sometimes you’ll reinvent the wheel, true. But occasionally the new wheel will have some subtle enhancement you never thought useful before.
What are you doing on Monday?
p.s. If you have something that needs my attention, be SURE to …

May as well call this the Doug Boldt show!
Podsafe Music
+ Silent Night
+ Hark the Herald Angels Sing
+ O Holy Night
+ Act Education Loans Promo
+ Deck the Halls
+ What Child Is This
+ I Saw Three Ships
+ FAFSA filing reminder
+ All by piano virtuoso Doug Boldt
+ Music via the Podsafe Music Network
Reminders
+ Private student loans
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student loans
+ Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ FAFSA form online filing at FAFSAonline.com
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidNews.com.
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.
Direct …