Here I sit on day 6. Pearson could not deliver my exam because of their system failure. Their "customer service" hours are from 7AM to 7PM Central. As of 8:15AM Central, neither I nor customer service can log on to the system. Pearson's advice continues to be to try using their online system after hours. I can not reschedule the exam that they failed to deliver, a Pearson employee has to do it. So I'm just stuck.
I'm sorry, but a 5 hour delay is NOT "up, but at a reduced capacity" at they claim. Failing to deliver an EIGHT HOUR exam for 5 hours is an outage. You show up at 7AM and the exam can't be run until noon? So you're taking an exam until 8PM? Ridiculous.
People all over the globe are unable to schedule or reschedule exams. They are showing up at testing centers only to be turned away because the center can't deliver the exam - Pearson's servers are unreachable. Calls to customer service offer no assistance other than "We can't log in, try again tomorrow."
That's really the core of the problem. They claim that they're fully up, just at diminished capacity. Some people are managing to squeeze exams in here and there. Some people are managing to schedule or reschedule. But many people are being turned away from testing centers. Many people can't reschedule anything. Calls to customer service result in "Sorry, we can't get into the system either."
Not everybody with a lapsing cetification is lazy. Some entire COUNTRIES don't have a Pearson Vue center. There was one post on the FB page of a lady who had to first make an appointment to get a visa with her government. Once they finally get around to granting the appointment, she has to book the exam. But she hasn't been able to book the exam in 5 days, and her appointment time for the visa came and went. She won't be able to get visa in time to certify prior to expiration.
On the Cisco front... it's not that far fetched that a non-lazy person might be about to lose their certification. Maybe you start booking recertification exams somewhere around 3 months prior to expiration, you decide you'll try an advanced exam to move up in the world. You take the exam, maybe you fail it. 2 months left. You then study and have to find a center with an appointment. Maybe 3-4 weeks left at this point. Maybe you fail again. So you decide you can't pass the higher level exam and study up to recertify. On Sunday you try to book the exam. You can't. And you can't Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. And it looks like you probably won't be able to book Friday either, and maybe the whole weekend. Now you're really in trouble. Will there even be an appointment anywhere? Maybe you have to travel out of state to reach a Vue center.
I'll give you that there are some procrastinators who wait for the last minute, but 5 days of being unable to book or take an already-booked exam is atrocious.
However you feel about the OP, let's all agree that the people quoting HIPPA regulations in the replies are idiots. It's HIPAA. Not HIPPA or HIPA or HIPPO. In a field where a single letter makes one hell of a difference (SMP or SNMP? DNS or DSN? NTP or NNTP), if you're going to give legal advice, you could at least cite the NAME OF THE FUCKING LAW correctly.
I have to second this reply. The hospital may be authorized to do this by the contracts mentioned above, and there may even be permission granted in the contract affiliating the physican's group with the hospital. Even if there's no contract, if you're directly connected to a hospital-managed LAN, I think they're well within their rights to attempt to penetrate any device on their network.
Most concerning on your end would be if it's just a separate office not on the hospital campus network, your own internet pipe, and the hospital is attempting to penetrate your network simply because you're affiliated. Without language in the affiliation contract, that kind of action is clearly against the law.
You act like the kids are paying for a univerisity education and the OP is shorting them because he hates Windows. News flash: he is a *volunteer* in the Peace Corps. He's teaching in Kenya. That would be in Africa, bordering coutries like Ethopia and Somalia. Do you think it's possible that he's using FOSS to maximize his budget?
Sucks to have to pay extra monthly but you could buy a mobile broadband card. It won't be terribly fast but you won't have to install their agent on your computer.
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Here I sit on day 6. Pearson could not deliver my exam because of their system failure. Their "customer service" hours are from 7AM to 7PM Central. As of 8:15AM Central, neither I nor customer service can log on to the system. Pearson's advice continues to be to try using their online system after hours. I can not reschedule the exam that they failed to deliver, a Pearson employee has to do it. So I'm just stuck.
I'm sorry, but a 5 hour delay is NOT "up, but at a reduced capacity" at they claim. Failing to deliver an EIGHT HOUR exam for 5 hours is an outage. You show up at 7AM and the exam can't be run until noon? So you're taking an exam until 8PM? Ridiculous. People all over the globe are unable to schedule or reschedule exams. They are showing up at testing centers only to be turned away because the center can't deliver the exam - Pearson's servers are unreachable. Calls to customer service offer no assistance other than "We can't log in, try again tomorrow."
That's really the core of the problem. They claim that they're fully up, just at diminished capacity. Some people are managing to squeeze exams in here and there. Some people are managing to schedule or reschedule. But many people are being turned away from testing centers. Many people can't reschedule anything. Calls to customer service result in "Sorry, we can't get into the system either."
There are many exams that are only open for a specific window of time, you either pass them in the window or you're out of luck.
Not everybody with a lapsing cetification is lazy. Some entire COUNTRIES don't have a Pearson Vue center. There was one post on the FB page of a lady who had to first make an appointment to get a visa with her government. Once they finally get around to granting the appointment, she has to book the exam. But she hasn't been able to book the exam in 5 days, and her appointment time for the visa came and went. She won't be able to get visa in time to certify prior to expiration. On the Cisco front... it's not that far fetched that a non-lazy person might be about to lose their certification. Maybe you start booking recertification exams somewhere around 3 months prior to expiration, you decide you'll try an advanced exam to move up in the world. You take the exam, maybe you fail it. 2 months left. You then study and have to find a center with an appointment. Maybe 3-4 weeks left at this point. Maybe you fail again. So you decide you can't pass the higher level exam and study up to recertify. On Sunday you try to book the exam. You can't. And you can't Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. And it looks like you probably won't be able to book Friday either, and maybe the whole weekend. Now you're really in trouble. Will there even be an appointment anywhere? Maybe you have to travel out of state to reach a Vue center. I'll give you that there are some procrastinators who wait for the last minute, but 5 days of being unable to book or take an already-booked exam is atrocious.
Well... I haven't heard of a 5+ day Prometric outage, for one.
Everything is not local. The testing location's servers must be able to contact Vue's servers when the exam is launched.
However you feel about the OP, let's all agree that the people quoting HIPPA regulations in the replies are idiots. It's HIPAA. Not HIPPA or HIPA or HIPPO. In a field where a single letter makes one hell of a difference (SMP or SNMP? DNS or DSN? NTP or NNTP), if you're going to give legal advice, you could at least cite the NAME OF THE FUCKING LAW correctly.
I have to second this reply. The hospital may be authorized to do this by the contracts mentioned above, and there may even be permission granted in the contract affiliating the physican's group with the hospital. Even if there's no contract, if you're directly connected to a hospital-managed LAN, I think they're well within their rights to attempt to penetrate any device on their network. Most concerning on your end would be if it's just a separate office not on the hospital campus network, your own internet pipe, and the hospital is attempting to penetrate your network simply because you're affiliated. Without language in the affiliation contract, that kind of action is clearly against the law.
You act like the kids are paying for a univerisity education and the OP is shorting them because he hates Windows. News flash: he is a *volunteer* in the Peace Corps. He's teaching in Kenya. That would be in Africa, bordering coutries like Ethopia and Somalia. Do you think it's possible that he's using FOSS to maximize his budget?
I do realize you said you looked for wireless broadband but Sprint says they provide service to CMU's zipcode.
Sucks to have to pay extra monthly but you could buy a mobile broadband card. It won't be terribly fast but you won't have to install their agent on your computer.