lewin

I can't say the specific laptop/ultrabook that's best for you (though the upcoming Asus Zenbook Infinity looks like my perfect laptop).  I will give some advice, though, and answer some of your questions.
 
First, ultrabook is a marketing term.  They're all laptops (or notebooks, rather).  Generally, ultrabooks are small, lightweight, thin, and have an ultra-low voltage Intel processor (sacrifice processing power for longer battery life).  They almost always have solid-state storage rather than a traditional hard disk drive and are typically much more difficult to upgrade or fix yourself.  If none of that means anything to you, don't worry.  The main thing is that ultrabook vs. laptop doesn't matter outside what will be the best fit for you.
 
Which operating system?
I lean towards Windows 7 unless you have a touch screen, but Windows 8 should be perfectly fine as well.  Windows 8 has some performance increases, but it also has some relatively radical shifts in design and user interface.  Windows 7 will more closely approximate what you're used to having used Windows XP or Windows Vista (7 is basically an improved version of Vista).  
 
What else will you need?
If your laptop/ultrabook doesn't have a DVD drive, you may want an external drive.  Unless you know you need to install software using a DVD, I'd skip ordering one until you know you need it.  Most people very rarely/never use their disc drives anymore as downloading software is much more convenient.
 
Boot-up Speed
Both Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines are capable of booting very quickly.  To boot quickly in Windows 7, hibernate instead of shutting down.  Turning your computer back on should take only a few seconds.  If you completely shut down the computer, it'll take anywhere from 15 seconds to 2+ minutes depending on Windows version/configuration and the software you have installed.  Windows 8 machines more or less only hibernate (they basically changed their classifications to make "shutting down" much quicker) and will boot very quickly.
 
Amount of RAM
The amount of RAM you want will most likely depend on the size of your data sets.  None of your other usages will benefit from more than 4 GB.  If you have some very large data sets, you might benefit from 8 GB.  
 
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
 
Hard Drive vs. Solid-State Drive
Your primary storage will be either a hard drive or a solid-state drive.  Cheaper laptops almost always have hard drives.    Ultrabooks typically have solid-state drives.  Hard drives give you significantly more storage space for every dollar spent.  Solid-State drives are much faster and provide a better experience.  I'd highly recommend a solid-state drive as they have enough storage space for most users (exceptions are if you have a huge movie/music/other media collection) and are much better. 
 
Screen Resolution
When looking at specs, screen resolution typically comes in at 1366 x 768, 1920 x 1080, or 1600 x 900 on most laptops.  Higher resolutions will result in sharper images on the same size screen.  On default settings, higher resolution screens will give you more real estate to work with.  
 
Other Screen Considerations
Your best bet will be seeing the screens in person.  If the computer touts an IPS panel (type of display technology), it's likely a very nice looking screen.  Different quality panels will effect color accuracy, viewing angles, etc.
 
Keyboard and Trackpad
Your keyboard and trackpad can have a deceptively large influence over how much you enjoy using a computer.  I'd recommend going in-store to try some out.  It's one of the most important considerations for me.
 
Convertible vs. Traditional Laptop
Convertibles offer both a tablet and a laptop experience in one.  I don't have much experience with them and can't comment too in-depth.  The Lenovo Yoga seemed quite nice when I played around with it.  The Microsoft Surface was a cool device, but I would never want to use the keyboard cover on a regular basis.
 
Size and Form Factor
For similarly priced machines, the size and form factor will involve some tradeoffs.  Bigger machines are generally more powerful, less likely to break, and have poorer battery life.  Smaller machines generally are less powerful (will probably be most notable for you when working with larger data sets) and have better battery life.
 
Battery Life
More power means less battery life and vice versa.  
 
Brand (just my impressions/experiences)
Acer- Solid price-performance ratio in my experience, though more geared towards the low-end market
Asus- Great hardware, poor customer support
Dell- Cheap, decent, and the easiest/cheapest to repair or get repaired.  Middle of the road quality.
HP- Avoid.  Their consumer laptops have been downright awful for awhile now.
Lenovo- People generally love the Thinkpad line.  I'd avoid the Ideapad laptops unless you get a great deal.
Samsung- I love their $250 Chromebook, but don't have any experience with their Windows laptops.
Sony- Higher-end models are nice, but the price premium is usually not worthwhile.
Toshiba- Have done well in the reliability surveys I've seen (though the surveys are dated).  In my experience: mediocre build quality, awful glossy keyboards.
 
 

Tenure committees usually require 2-5 letters from experts in the field who can comment on one's publications and the quality of the journals. I expect the candidate would get eviscerated, unless there was deliberate deception going on (e.g., one CV to the experts, another CV to the committee). 

First off, there have been about 5000 threads on here and StudentDoctor in the past few weeks about this very topic. That's why you're not getting many replies- it's exhausting to keep typing the same thing over and over again. Look at past threads and then maybe ask more specific questions on this one.
 
As far as the advising style- I figured this out a few different ways.
 
First, reputation- ask other grad students who went through the application process before you about different professors. Some have a reputation for being difficult, crazy, unstable, not letting their grad students do their own reserach, etc. Each psych specialty is actually rather small, so these sorts of things get around. I wouldn't base an entire decision to apply on this, but it's something to consider when weighing the pros/cons of a program and a prof.
 
Second, meeting them in person- just meeting someone in person can give you a lot of insight into their personality. I know it's not quite the same thing as advising style, but you can make SOME of the appropriate leaps pretty easily. This can be at a conference, or during the interview.
 
Third, ASK- I asked every professor this in my interview- "what is your mentoring/advising style?". Some deflected and said to answer their grad students, but most told me what they strive for as their mentoring style. Then I asked almost every single graduate student what I met in their lab the same question. Look out for euphemisms... for example, "he gives us a lot of independence to do our own projects" could easily mean anything from what it says to a completely hands-off, unhelpful adviser. Pay attention to how they say things, what they aren't saying, and their non-verbal language :-).

Thanks, TakeruK. 

The thread wasn't intended as an entitled complaint about university funding. I just think that the current system is built to give universities maximum financial flexibility, but the cost of a lack of transparency for students. I'd just like to see a grant called a grant, and a job called a job. 
 
As for the comment by ANDS!: "I think only grad. students would find trading 20 hours a week of grading low level assignments in exchange for a free post-graduate education "deceptive and unfair. . ."" Well, I think only someone who hasn't held a decently-paying job would consider $8-10K in tuition a year a good salary for working 20 hours a week. But I digress.

Haha, are you serious? I happen to research discrimination, so I have the home field advantage here. I could provide a hundred research citations that sexism still occurs in academia but two easy examples are: At my university last year they hired about 70 new faculty and at least 65 were men. Second, recently the Canadian government initiated a new academic research chair program. Nineteen research grants, every single one went to men. I didn't say that engineering etc were sexist because they're male dominated. I said they're male dominated and more sexist, on average. Though a causal connection seems likely.

And my "dig" at (some parts of) the U.S. was not supposed to be subtle. Not at progressive Americans, but at the ones attending chick fil a appreciation day, certainly.

I'm a little incredulous at anyone who is minimizing the OP's claims because he won't name is specific department. What difference does it make? Engineering, physics, computer science, mathematics -- these are all male-dominated and also (relative to other fields) more sexist; they're probably more homophobic too. If "every field" is receptive to gay people where do all the homophobes come from?!

There can be downsides of keeping an up-to-date CV. The good feeling I get from moving a "manuscript in prep" to "under review" is far outweighed by having to move it back down again three months later

There can be downsides of keeping an up-to-date CV. The good feeling I get from moving a "manuscript in prep" to "under review" is far outweighed by having to move it back down again three months later

There can be downsides of keeping an up-to-date CV. The good feeling I get from moving a "manuscript in prep" to "under review" is far outweighed by having to move it back down again three months later

Well, never say never, but you do have some substantial obstacles.  Most likely you would not be a competitive candidate for a reputable PhD program so your plan to try for a master's program at this time is probably the best route for you.  But here are some things to consider:
 
1) Other than intro courses, I am not sure a junior college will offer the level of coursework that a grad program would be looking for.  Most folks who are applying to master's programs have quite a few upper level psychology courses under their belt.
 
2) You may want to think about why your undergrad GPA was 3.0.  If you struggled in undergrad due to coursework, why do you expect to do well in grad school?
 
3) Why do you want to get a psychology grad degree?  You said you would "most likely" pursue clinical or social.  Those are very different degrees with very different career trajectories.  You may be able to refine your interest in lower-level classes at a junior college, but you may not get an accurate feel for what those fields really are.
 
Just some things to consider.  Not trying to be discouraging; just hoping you will have a realistic plan.

Shortly after I defended my MA thesis I was contacted by a publisher (ha!) like this. They offered to print my thesis as a book, and they said that I would get a free copy (oooo, shiny!). I looked them square in the monocle and said NEIN!
 
Publishers like this exist to satisfy the vanity of young scholars (also, I've heard that certain European students are required to publish as a condition of their degree - these venues provide that outlet). These publishers know that they'll make a few bucks when Granny and Momma Roquentin buy his book, and they get to wheel-and-deal young authors who are very unsophisticated when it come to publishing their work.
 
Here's the rub. You don't want non-reviewed, vanity publications on your cv. Hiring committees will see these a mile away, and they'll assume that you're a rube who isn't prepared to navigate the waters of serious, professional research dissemination. These "publications" will diminish your credibility. So for the love of fun, save your valuable ideas for the pages of reputable journals in your field! Publish your monographs with real academic publishers! Don't waste your talent!

^I agree that that seems like a sweeping generalization, and I disagree with it.  You can work 10-hour days and maintain a good work-life balance, in fact.  It depends on how you define "good".  I tend to take at least one full day off per week, and make time for myself in the evenings (a few hours) and I'm doing quite well in my program.  I'm no superstar, but I'm also not just shuffling towards a PhD aimlessly.
 
I honestly think it's counterproductive to be nose to the grindstone all the time and never balance that out with the rest of your life.  First of all, you won't have any friends or partners.  And secondly, your life makes your work better.  I am often inspired by newspaper or magazine articles; it fuels my curiosity about the world.  Enjoying myself with friends or my husband makes me much more refreshed and ready to get back to work.  I'm not doing this to work all the time; I'm doing this as an enjoyable way to support the rest of my life.  Avoid drinking the academic kool-aid that posits that you must be working, or thinking about work, nearly all of the time or you will fail.  That's a great way to have guilt following you around, and it just demoralizes you and makes you feel depressed and anxious - which in turn makes you less productive.  (I have a lot of experience with this, as this was essentially years 2, 3, and 4 of my PhD.  I was so miserable!)
 
BUT I don't totally disagree with lewin00.  You will need to work weekends more often than not.  You will need to work nights, more often than not.  Nine to five isn't really going to work for this, especially not when you're still in coursework.  If you want to try to structure your days, say, 8 to 6 M-F and maybe like 10 to 4 on Saturday, then I think that's more realistic.

The program is barely funded. It's not a good program at all- in fact I know it's considered a safety school, however bc of my low gpa and the fact that it took me 10 years to get my bachelors, it is my only option. The only reason I got in is bc I have killer GRE scores. I will be bartending, until I get my internship which helps pay for my tuition and I will throw myself into that. I'm also doing it bc its important for me to explore a big city while I get my doctorate. I know that the majority of ppl here wouldn't even consider a nonfunded program where they would be required to work, but my situation is different. I feel anxious bc I don't know how soon I need to worry about research, I don't have an idea about what I want to focus on, and it makes me feel better knowing that I at least have my first year to take classes and learn more before having to decide. Thank u for your response! And I have asked to get in touch with a present grad student, but they haven't contacted me back yet. It's been a couple weeks--I know...another red flag.

It really depends on the career you want. If you want to be a superstar, count on working 10-12 hours days and weekends. Here's a quote from a very successful early-career social psychologist: "If you think you have a good work-life balance, it means you're not working enough."
 
If you just want to graduate with a PhD and are less concerned about that, you could probably get away with 9-5 doing research and evenings/weekends doing coursework and TA work.

What the heck does her being unmarried or younger than you have to do with it?

I think that for most scholars, publishing in the same journal repeatedly isn't necessarily even a choice. Most researchers default to publishing in multiple journals simply because a particular high impact journal that they were aiming for does not always accept their work (or in fact, rarely does!). I recently read a very good article from a respected methodologist in my field. He said that oftentimes papers are rejected not because they are of low quality but because certain journals cannot find the appropriate reviewers or the article simply does not align with the mission of the journal as well as other submissions do. Thus, the most ideal strategy (at least in my field) is to publish in the highest impact journals that you can, but do not be preoccupied with publishing in the same journal. Find the most suitable outlet for your work, and keep trying other journals until you find a suitable match (the reviewer feedback should also strengthen your manuscript along the way).

MTurk is cheap but you can't restrict location more specifically than countries. Though there are ways around it: You could post a prequalifying task that asks people for their location for a few cents, then create a second task and invite only the people from Atlanta. They come from all over the U.S. though, so I suspect you'd need to prescreen thousands of people to get your Atlanta sample. Or, you could ask people to participate only if they live in Atlanta. This depends on their goodwill and you'd never know if people are deceiving you about their location.
 
I've used the survey panel from the company Toluna before. They're reputable and have a bit panel, but I suspect they'll cost more than you'll want to pay-- a representative U.S. sample is about $4/person and cost goes up as your requirements get more specific. I expect your sample would cost thousands of dollars (but quotes are free!).
 
Frankly, you're probably better of posting on craiglist and putting up posters around town, and doing a prize draw for participants.

I'm doing this now (writing up my MSc thesis, which I defended last summer, into a paper). Right now, pretty much exactly 0% of the results I wrote and defended in my thesis will be in this paper. Actually, all of the results/simulations are from stuff I did in the last 3 months. It's a little amusing that basically all the actual science output from my 2 year MSc program could have been finished in 3 months if I knew exactly what I was doing when I started! Obviously that's not a realistic scenario and the whole point of the MSc (and most of research) is to figure out what to do.
 
Anyways, the reason why I redid all of my simulations/computations was because there was a tiny error in one of the lines of code (that someone else wrote). So, it made all of the data in my thesis wrong -- not so wrong that the main conclusions are incorrect, but wrong enough that specific numbers are different, and some trends are stronger/weaker. 
 
But that shouldn't matter at all. Like I said above, the point of a Masters is to learn research and to do some research. What you wrote in your thesis and what you defended was correct, to the best of your knowledge, at the time. It's perfectly okay to publish a paper that gives completely different results than what you wrote in your thesis (no one will read it anyways). You didn't get the Masters degree for getting a specific result -- you got the degree to recognize the work and education/experience you gained from doing your project. Degrees are awarded to certify a level of training/competence, not because you solved a problem or produced a result!

What's not to be sold on?? From bjacque's program, you'll be over 120,000 dollars in debt, have a degree from an unaccredited program (errg...excuse me...on probation from the APA), and not be able to find an internship.  Fun huh??  Oh...and a 14% APA accredited internship placement last year 

This thread is like being in high school :-).
 
No, there is no such thing as early action.

I don't see why it should have to be the perfect match 100%. For example, if worked with someone who generally does what you're interested in, you could propose a study looking at weight/BMI within that. Or if you worked with someone who did children, perhaps you could do a study expanding his research into adolescents or young adults. Not every study you do has to exactly map onto what your POI is doing... I'd say if you get to like, 75% match you're closely matched. Just have an idea of how you would take the POI's current research and stretch it into your own.

What the heck does her being unmarried or younger than you have to do with it?

I had an OGS in the second year of my MSc at Queen's in 2011-2012 (i.e. under the old system).
 
The reason for the hour limit is that if a grad student is meant to work, say, 40 hours per week, then the award (plus top-up, if any) is supposed to be paying for up to 30 hours per week (your prof may pay you an RA in addition to this as well), leaving you 10 hours per week to work as TA etc. 10 hours per week is actually the standard maximum TA load -- I know the Queen's Collective Bargaining Agreement stipulates a maximum of 10 hours per week, on average (so you could double TA in one year, or do all your TAing in one week if it's a field course etc.) Other awards, since as NSERC has the same maximum.
 
I can think of at least two reasons why this limit is good.
 
1. The award is for you to do research. I am pretty sure there has to be a research component to your program to be eligible for the OGS. This limit prevents the department from forcing you to work too many TA hours. For my department, we also had a pretty generous minimum funding level, so since they could only give us a small number of TA hours per week, this means I got more "free money" (internal fellowships). If you want numbers, my contract was only 4.5 hours of TAing per week while non-scholarship students usually had 9 hours of TAing per week. Overall, a OGS student in the department got paid more money for doing less TA work. So it's a good thing if there is a minimum level.
 
2. The OGS isn't "free money", like I said above, you are expected to work for it through research. It's not fair for someone to win a competitive award and then spend most of their time working on a side project (whether it's a part time job or their own project/business, whatever). However, I think that if the side project (part time job, business, whatever) is on your own time, in addition to what you would have worked anyways, then it's none of OGS or your school's business and I wouldn't feel guilty about going over 10 hours a week. i.e. if you have something you really want to do, and you spend 40 hours a week being a grad student then 20 hours a week in evenings/weekends doing your own paid work, then that's all good. Just don't get caught, but as phalanges said, it's pretty hard to get caught! But if you choose to break the rules, just be aware that the consequences are pretty high and be sure that what you're doing is worth it!
 
To address your final point though, I doubt the 10 hours per week condition will be lifted. Also like phalanges said, the school might impose its own limits on outside work anyways. But if you are worried about this max # of hours messing up your TA plans, then don't worry, schools are used to this and will have a way around it. 10 hours per week for the entire duration of the award (i.e. 1 year) is actually 520 hours that can be allocated in any way one would like. Usually there is no TAing in the summer, so you could even TA / work 20 hours per week in one semester then 10 hours per week in another. 
 
If your program doesn't fund you well enough to live on TA + OGS then you can do things like tutor privately as well. My department was very encouraging of this and even hosted a list of grad student tutors on the department website. All of these hours are undocumented so it's one way to make a bit of extra income without worrying about going over 10 hours per week.

If you paid an application fee by credit card, file a chargeback.

This might be a good starting point to get creative juices flowing, but usually we joke that "future directions" are the studies that are about to be sent out for review.