Dirty PC! Here are the areas to checkTurn off the hardware first. If you can see that the port is severely clogged–say, with peanut butter or another thick, child-friendly substance–gently dig the gunk out with toothpicks. But remember: Ethernet, serial, and other jacks rely on fragile pins, so try to move in and out on the same path instead of swirling around the sides.

Spray air to clean.For less sticky situations, use a can of compressed air (actually pressurized gases) to blast out loose bits. These cans sell for $5 to $10 at any computer store. (Keep them away from children: The gases are dangerous to inhale and come out extremely cold.) Fire at the target in short bursts.

Swab to clean.Finish cleaning with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol or electronics cleaner. Leave the device turned off for a couple hours to dry.

How to clean a dusty PC

If your desktop PC’s case gets dirty as time goes by, grime can clog the fans that keep internal parts cool. If airflow is blocked, those parts could overheat.

Safety tip: Touch metal on a case when unplugging a power cable.First, shut everything down, and unplug all cables besides the power cord. Touch a metal part of the case–such as the PCI slot cover–and then unplug the power cable. This will discharge any potential static ex­­ternally, instead of damaging electrically sensitive components inside. Wear shoes, and work in an uncarpeted room.

A few more precautions can add further protection. Use a layer of rubber (such as mouse pads) between the PC and your worktable. Wear an antistatic bracelet, and connect it to a metal part of the PC chassis.

Open the PC case to clear out any grime. Many cases have side doors held in place by a single Phillips-head screw or thumbscrew; consult your manual for specific directions.

Pull out any loose clots of hair, dirt, or other obstructions. Then use a can of compressed air to blast anything else away and out of the PC. Keep the can upright, and press the trigger in a series of short bursts. Use the nozzle straw to direct the flow close to your target.

Use air to clean inside the PC, and tie cables out of the way.Blow grime up and out of the case if possible, but focus your attention on clearing clogs at vented areas. Blast through grating, and blow from inside the PC, out through the power supply’s fan, until you no longer see any dirt being cleared away.

While you’re inside, make sure that internal cables are clear of vents. Use cable ties to fix them to the sides. Reclose the case, and reconnect everything.

To slow future dirt accumulation, try to keep your PC off the floor, since that’s where much of the grime originates. Repeat this cleaning process annually, especially if you have pets.

Services managing kids’ communications generally rely on a compliant network operator and/or a customised handset, but Motorola reckons it has the technology to apply parental controls to any handset on any network by intercepting communication with the SIM.

Norwegian startup Bipper will provide the service. The company shamelessly flaunts the “think of the children” approach, complete with an insipid backstory about the founder’s kids, but completely lacking in technical details.

The iSIM wraps around the existing SIM, intercepting communications for the protection of ankle biters

Intercepting SIM communications isn’t new – circuits of a similar nature have been used for years by hackers and those who just want to squeeze two SIMs into a single handset or play similar games. The concept gained popularity with the launch of the iPhone: a SIM-intercept chip can catch network name requests and assure the iPhone it’s on the AT&T network, but these days software unlocks are more popular.

Bladox makes all kind of interesting SIM-intercept devices

Motorola’s iSIM (intelligent SIM) is an attempt to take the process mainstream, with the promise of adding SIM functionality without having to work with network operators who control SIMs completely.

Bipper is the first application to do this. Just wrap an iSIM around the SIM card and once the service is live you’ll get a web interface through which you can set the permitted numbers and times your child will be allowed to call. That configuration is sent to the mobile and intercepted by the iSIM, which blocks calls to other numbers by refusing to authenticate the SIM to the phone.

Enterprising children might try ripping off the protective prophylactic, so it’s probably best not to tell them it’s installed. To be fair, the Bipper service is aimed at children in the six to 10 range – a demographic not known for its in-depth understanding of GSM SIM authentication procedures.

We’re not sure how the handset will react to the iSIM’s interference – in our experience it throws up some sort of device-dependent error message. Motorola hasn’t yet responded to a request for more information, but it will certainly depend on the handset model and make.

Obviously a service like this would be better placed with the network operator, but that would open the operator to accusations of putting children at risk of deadly cellphone radiation (reality be damned). In the US Disney offered something similar, but the mouse’s MVNO* failed and the idea hasn’t spread widely.

As a technology the iSIM has potential far beyond controlling the behaviour of children. Network operators have been astoundingly reluctant to do anything interesting with their SIMs, but with Motorola’s iSIM third parties can have a shot and hopefully we’ll see something more interesting than an unlocked iPhones or a kid who can’t make calls in class.

Transistors are shrinking on microprocessors but can that continue indefinitely?

Awareness of the breakneck speed at which computer technology develops has seeped into the public consciousness. We’ve all heard the joke about buying a computer at the store only to find out it’s obsolete by the time you get home. What will the future hold for computers?

Assuming microprocessor manufacturers can continue to live up to Moore’s Law, the processing power of our computers should double every two years. That would mean computers 100 years from now would be 1,125,899,906,842,624 times more powerful than the current models. That’s hard to imagine.

But even Gordon Moore would caution against assuming Moore’s Law will hold out that long. In 2005, Moore said that as transistors reach the atomic scale we may encounter fundamental barriers we can’t cross. At that point, we won’t be able to cram more transistors in the same amount of space.

We may get around that barrier by building larger processor chips with more transistors. But transistors generate heat, and a hot processor can cause a computer to shut down. Computers with fast processors need efficient cooling systems to avoid overheating. The larger the processor chip, the more heat the computer will generate when working at full speed.

Another tactic is to switch to multi-core architecture. A multi-core processor dedicates part of its processing power to each core. They’re good at handling calculations that can be broken down into smaller components; however, they aren’t as good at handling large computational problems that can’t be broken down.

Future computers may rely on a completely different model than traditional machines. What if we abandon the old transistor-based processor.

Optics, Quantum Processing and DNA Computers

Fiber-optic technology has already begun to revolutionize computers. Fiber-optic data lines carry information at incredible speeds and aren’t vulnerable to electromagnetic interference like classic cables. What if we were to build a computer that uses light to transmit information instead of electricity?

One benefit is that an optical or photonic system would generate less heat than the traditional electronic transistor processor. The data would transmit at a faster rate as well. But engineers have yet to develop a compact optical transistor that can be mass produced. Scientists at ETH Zurich were able to build an optical transistor just one molecule in size. But to make the system effective, the scientists had to cool the molecule to minus 272 degrees Celsius, or 1 degree Kelvin. That’s just a little warmer than deep space . That’s not really practical for the average computer user.

Photonic transistors could become part of a quantum computer. Unlike traditional computers, which use binary digits or bits to perform operations, quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits. A bit is either a 0 or a 1. Think of it like a switch that is either off or on. But a qubit can be both a 0 and a 1 (or anything in between) at the same time. The switch is both off and on and everything in between.

A working quantum computer should be able to solve big problems that can be split into smaller ones much faster than a traditional computer. We call these problems embarrassingly parallel problems. But quantum computers are, by their very nature, unstable. If the quantum state of the computer is upset, the machine could revert to the computing power of a traditional computer. Like the optical transmitter created at ETH Zurich, quantum computers are kept at just a few degrees above absolute zero to preserve their quantum states.

Perhaps the future of computers lies inside of us. Teams of computer scientists are working to develop computers that use DNA to process information. This combination of computer science and biology could lead the way to the next generation of computers. A DNA computer might have several advantages over traditional machines. For example, DNA is a plentiful and cheap resource. If we discover a way to harness DNA as a data processing tool, it could revolutionize the computer field.

Ubiquitous Computing

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Devices like the Microsoft Surface are pushing computers into new environments.

A popular theme in science fiction stories set in the future is ubiquitous computing. In this future, computers have become so small and pervasive that they are in practically everything. You might have computer sensors in your floor that can monitor your physical health. Computers in your car that can assist you when you drive to work. And computers practically everywhere track your every move.

It’s a vision of the future that is both exhilarating and frightening. On the one hand, computer networks would become so robust that we’d always have a fast, reliable connection to the Internet. You could communicate with anyone you choose no matter where you were with no worries about interruption in service. But on the other hand, it would also become possible for corporations, governments or other organizations to gather information about you and keep tabs on you wherever you go.

We’ve seen steps toward ubiquitous computing over the last decade. Municipal Wi-Fi projects and 4G technologies like LTE and WiMAX have extended network computing far beyond the world of wired machines. You can purchase a smartphone and access petabytes of information on the World Wide Web in a matter of seconds. Sensors in traffic stoplights and biometric devices can detect our presence. It may not be long before nearly everything we come into contact with has a computer or sensor inside it.

We may also see massive transformations in user interface technology. Currently, most computers rely on physical input interfaces like a computer mouse, keyboard, tracking pad or other surface upon which we input commands. There are also computer programs that can recognize your voice or track your eye movements to execute commands. Computer scientists and neurologists are working on various brain-computer interfaces that will allow people to manipulate computers using only their thoughts. Who knows? The computers of the future may react seamlessly with our desires.

To extrapolate out to 100 years is difficult. Technological progress isn’t necessarily linear or logarithmic. We may experience decades of progress followed by a period in which we make very little headway as we bump up against unforeseen barriers. On the other hand, according to some futurists, there may be no meaningful difference between computers and humans within 100 years. In that world, we’ll be transformed into a new species that can improve upon itself at a pace unimaginable to us in our current forms. Whatever the future may hold, it’s a safe bet to assume the machines we rely upon will be very different from today’s computers.

Learn more about computer technology by following the links on the next page.

Resources:

• Bone, Simone and Matias Castro. “A Brief History of Quantum Computing.” Imperial College, London, Department of Computing. 1997.
  
• Dubash, Michael. “Moore’s Law is dead, says Gordon Moore.” Techworld. April 13, 2005. (March 17, 2010)
  
• MIT. “Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory (xQIT), MIT.” TechNews. March 2007. (March 18, 2010)
  
• NASA. “Using ‘Nature’s Toolbox,’ a DNA Computer Solves a Complex Problem.” March 14, 2002. (March 18, 2010)
  
• Purdue News. “Purdue researchers stretch DNA on chip, lay track for future computers.” October 2003. (March 18, 2010)
  
• Science Daily. “Optical Computer Closer: Optical Transistor Made From Single Molecule.” July 3, 2009. (March 17, 2010)
  
• Science Daily. “Super-Fast Computers Of The Future.” Sept. 3, 2009. (March 18, 2010)
  

Cisco Valet Plus Design

The design doesn’t look radically different from other Cisco/Linksys routers, but the unit feels significantly lighter for some reason. The sleek Valet Plus is a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi router with three internal antennas that perform 2×3 transmit/receive, effectively doubling the throughput of the wireless signal. There are four Gigabit Ethernet ports housed in the sleek silver-and-white body. The bundled Easy Setup Key is emblazoned with Cisco’s logo.

The unit looks good, but a big pet peeve of mine with Cisco/Linksys routers returns with the Valet Plus: Confusing LED icons. The Valet Plus has the same annoying icons as on most of the current Cisco/Linksys home routers, such as the connectivity status icon that looks like the planet Saturn. I don’t want to interpret hieroglyphics when I’m troubleshooting my home network; I just want to know if my LAN and Internet connections are good. How about more intelligible LEDs, Cisco?

Fast Set-Up

Not only is the Valet Plus easy to set up, the set up is fast. After installing the Cisco Connect software onto my Windows 7 laptop, the notebook connected to the router in four minutes (including a mandatory system reboot), which was a minute less than the Linksys Wireless-G Router for Mobile Broadband (WRT54G3GV2-ST)’s ($127.99 direct, ) setup time. I’ve never seen a router ready to go so quickly. In addition, the Cisco Valet Plus automatically set the WPA-2 security parameters, and it connected without intervention on my part to the least-crowded wireless signal. That’s what I call true no-fuss set-up. What a seamless experience when compared to the convoluted setup we experienced with the SMC Barricade N Wireless Broadband Router ($62 direct, ), which to say the least, did not have a user-friendly setup and was as far as a device could get from being plug-and-play.

Although it was the easiest router I’d ever set up, the process was a bit disconcerting to me, as a network specialist, as I wasn’t in control of my home network. After all, I didn’t know the WPA-2 encryption key or SSID password. The worry, it turns out, was for naught, because the Cisco Connect software displays that information on your computer and allows you to change them. Real propellerheads may be ill at ease with this system, but it’s great for the average home user.

I found it just as simple to get a second laptop connected. From the Cisco Connect software, I selected “Connect another computer or device to your Valet.” I plugged the USB Easy Setup key into the second laptop, clicked on “Connect” and that laptop was rapidly connected with the security settings configured. The Cisco Connect software also serves as a management console that lets you can set parental controls, and enable advanced features such as giving guests secondary SSID and login credentials so that they can jump onto the Web without having access to other devices on your network.

Wireless Testing

The Valet Plus did well in performance testing, even though it didn’t reach the throughput rates of our speed champion, the D-Link DIR-825 Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router ($169.99 direct, ). Yet, as a router for consumers, it’s more than fast enough. It certainly blew away the performance of my current home router, the D-Link Gamerlounge DGL-4500.

To test performance, I first used Meraki WiFi Stumbler (Free, ), a wireless network utility used to check Wi-Fi signal strength. The Valet Plus configured itself to channel 1 (the least used channel) and operated at 100 percent signal strength. D-Link’s Gamerlounge DGL-4500 router, operating on channel 2, operated at 87 percent signal strength.

I then copied a 1.5GB file from one laptop to another that also resided on the same wireless network—the laptops were at a distance of five feet from the router. The Valet Plus transferred the file in 5 minutes and 30 seconds. That was far faster than the lengthy 22 minutes and 45 seconds that it took the D-Link GamerLounge DGL-4500 router to complete the same task.

The Valet Plus also aced Ixia’s IxChariot throughput test by pushing data at a 28 Mbps rate (it also achieved a maximum rate of 36.0 Mbps), also from a distance of five feet. That smoked my own D-Link DGL-4500’s 9.57 Mbps (which topped out at a max 11.59 Mbps). Still it’s nowhere near the speed of the D-Link DIR-825 Xtreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router, which clocked an astounding 80 Mbps at three feet away.

Feature Testing

Setting parental controls is as simple as creating a password, selecting (by name) the computer to be controlled, and then choosing the security options. It’s possible to completely block Internet access, or to restrict access by time of day. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of flexibility with the time restriction option as the software has preset schedules for school days and nighttime hours. You can also opt to block specific websites. These parameters are easy to set up, and take effect almost immediately. Of course, if you think you’re going to control your kids by blocking each and every bad site, you’re deluded. Still, if there’s a problem site or two you want to single out, this is one way to do it. If you’re really interested in controlling what goes on online, however, you’d be better off using one of the applications from our roundup of parental control software.

You can perform more more advanced tasks like port forwarding, or DHCP reservations, by accessing the router via a browser using its IP address (it’s 192.168.1.1, by default). Anyone used to configuring routers will be familiar with this standard interface. It’s devoid of graphics and has a lot of network settings that may be intimidating for the average home user. Unless they need to perform tweaks like MAC address cloning or port forwarding, home users are best served using the Cisco Connect software for configuration, as it features a much friendlier help system.

Bottom Line

Cicso has crafted a revolutionary router in the $149 Valet Plus. It’s a near-perfect consumer router that delivers dependable, fast performance, and a virtually intervention-free setup that erases the dread associated with connecting gear to a home network. Other vendors are sure to follow suit with this type of easy router installation. For now, however, Cisco’s ahead of the pack here with a pioneering product that will help non-techies get their networks set up with a minimum of hassle.

Can you please tell me what n! or n factorial is used for. I know what it is (5! is 120, because 1*2*3*4*5 = 120), but not what it is used for. I have heard that it is used in probability, but what for, and how? How does it work, and what are its uses?

Answer:

The factorial function is useful in computing the number of combinations or permutations that can be constructed from a set of objects. You can read about these uses in our FAQ:

Permutations and Combinations

Very briefly, here is the kind of problem that would give rise to the factorial function.

Suppose you have three people (Alan, Bob, Cindy), and you want to know how many ways they can stand in line. For a small number like 3, the answer is easy to construct by trial and error:

Alan, Bob, Cindy
Alan, Cindy, Bob
Bob, Alan, Cindy
Bob, Cindy, Alan
Cindy, Alan, Bob
Cindy, Bob, Alan

But for larger numbers of people, it becomes very difficult to avoid duplicating some sequences, or skipping some by accident.

With a little thought, we can see that if we have N people, then there are N choices for who might go into the first position:

1. Alan
2. Bob
3. Cindy
4. Diane

Having made that first choice, there are N-1 choices for who might go in the second position, for _each_ of the original choices:

1. Alan 1. Bob
2. Cindy
3. Diane

2. Bob 1. Alan
2. Cindy
3. Diane

3. Cindy 1. Alan
2. Bob
3. Diane

4. Diane 1. Alan
2. Bob
3. Cindy

Having made that first choice, there are N-1 choices for who might go in the second position, for _each_ of the original choices:

  1. Alan   1. Bob
            2. Cindy
            3. Diane

  2. Bob    1. Alan
            2. Cindy
            3. Diane

  3. Cindy  1. Alan
            2. Bob
            3. Diane

  4. Diane  1. Alan
            2. Bob
            3. Cindy

And there are N-2 choices for who might go into the third position, again for _each_ of the previous sets of choices:

  1. Alan   1. Bob      1. Cindy
                        2. Diane

            2. Cindy    1. Bob
                        2. Diane

            3. Diane    1. Bob
                        2. Cindy

  2. Bob    1. Alan     etc.
            2. Cindy
            3. Diane

  3. Cindy  1. Alan
            2. Bob
            3. Diane

  4. Diane  1. Alan
            2. Bob
            3. Cindy

I'll leave the rest of the chart for you to fill in, if you wish.
Note that the final number of possible orderings of N objects will be

        ways to
        make the
        next choice
        |
        v
  N * (N-1) * (N-2) * ... * 1

  ^                         ^
  |                         |
  ways to                   ways to
  make the                  make the
  first choice              final choice

which is exactly the factorial function.

When dealing with combinations and permutations (and, by extension, when dealing with probabilities), this kind of reasoning comes up over and over again, which is why the factorial function is so important.

Source:
- Doctor Ian, The Math Forum

The odds of a “Lotto” style lottery can be found with the formula: n! / (n – r)! r! where n is the highest numbered ball and r is the number of balls chosen. This is called in math a combination. An easier way to think about it is if there are 40 balls and 6 are chosen, there are 40 possible numbers that can come up first, leaving 39 that can come up second, then 38, 37, 36, and finally 35 on the final number. To find out how many numbers that is you multiply 40 ×39 ×38 ×37 ×36 × 35 = 2,763,633,600 making the odds 2 and a half billion to one.

Pretty slim odds, but luckily the order of the balls does not matter, so we can divide this number by how many ways these numbers can be arranged. There are six possibilities for the first ball, five for the second, 4 for the third, 3, 2, and one left over. That is 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 720 So, the odds are 2,763,633,600 ÷ 720 = 3,838,380 to one.

If I put $50 on one lottery, the odds of winning are 3,838,380 ÷ 50 = 76767.6 to one. That is the easy part.

The hard part is calculating the odds of winning if I put $1 on 50 lotteries. To do this we have to convert to probabilities. A probability is a number between 1 and 0. 1 means a perfect chance, 0 means no chance at all. The probability of winning the lottery with one dollar is 1 ÷ 3,838,380 = 0.0000002605… in other words, very small. The probability of winning the lottery with 50 dollars is 1 ÷ 76767.6 = 0.0000130263288…

Just for your information, the probability of winning twice in a row is this number squared which is 0.00000000000006. This is not very useful information except that we can use this formula in reverse to get what we want. The cool thing about probabilities, as opposed to odds, is that the probability of winning is one minus the probability of losing. This leads us to a way of calculating what we want by using a double negative. The probability of winning at least once in 50 tries is the same as the probability of not losing 50 times in a row.

The probability of losing is 1 – 0.0000002605… = 0.9999997394…

The probability of losing 50 times in a row is 0.9999997394… to the 50^th power = 0.99998697…

The probability of not losing 50 times in a row is 1 – 0.99998697… = 0.0000130262457…

So, since the probability of winning at least once in 50 tries is 0.0000130262457… and the probability of winning one lottery with 50 dollars is 0.0000130263288… The odds are very very slightly more favorable by playing all 50 dollars in one lottery than spreading it out among 50 lotteries.

Expected Return

Another way to look at lotteries is with expected returns. This gives another sleight advantage to putting 50 dollars on a single lottery when you wait for the jackpot to exceed the odds of winning. As stated in the Glossary, under the category of Sucker Bet, the formula is: EXPECTED RETURN = POTENTIAL WINNING * PROBABILITY OF WINNING – POTENTIAL COST * PROBABILITY OF LOSING.

Given the lottery above, if the jackpot starts at $1 million, the potential winning is 1 million, the probability of winning is 0.0000002605…, the potential cost is $1, and as many people have mentioned in response, the probability of losing is 1!

The expected return is 0.2605 – 1 = -0.7395, or a loss of 74 cents. What is not realized is that for every dollar put into the lottery at least 50 cents go to the state general fund, with some states taking as many as 70 cents on the dollar. A better expected return can be found by waiting for the jackpot to exceed $3,838,380. A four million dollar jackpot would have an expected gain of 4 cents.

The Best way to play the Lottery

Still, with the likelihood of winning being so small, you are better off burning your money, or giving it to charity. Lottery is a voluntary tax. I give enough to taxes, thank you very much. If my money is going to benefit someone else, it will be someone of my choosing.

Power Ball

On July 29, 1998 the 20 state Power Ball lottery gave away a record $250,000,000 or a quarter of a billion dollars. The odds of winning are around 80 million to 1 per ticket. Even if you decide to take it in a lump sum, it is worth $130 million.

Such gigantic sums of money are tempting lots of people. People are using their rent checks and paychecks to buy hundreds of tickets in an attempt to better their odds.

Sure every dollar you spend increases your chances of winning, but each increase is minor. Spending $2 increases your chances from 80 million:1 to 40 million:1.

Yeah you doubled your chances, but as we learned in elementary 2 times 0 is 0, so it follows that 2 times almost 0 is also almost 0.

The odds are calculated as follows:
There are 49 white balls in which 5 are chosen, the order does not matter. Then one of 42 red balls is chosen. Thus we have the formula:

Here is a better way to play the lottery, write down 5 numbers between 1 and 49, then pick a Powerball number between 1 and 42 (you can reuse any of the previous 5 or pick another number). Don’t buy a ticket, then when the drawing is held, and your numbers don’t match, you can congratulate yourself for saving a dollar.

A co-owner of Quality Manual Labor, the temporary labor firm that hired workers for Del Monte, said the lottery was held to promote safety. But an attorney for ex-workers at the plant said it was more likely used to discourage workers from complaining about aches, pains, hazards and accidents suffered on the job.

First, some background: Quality Manual Labor was a temoporary labor firm that hired mostly Hispanic workers to minimum-wage jobs in Del Monte’s food processing plant. A Dec. 30, 2004 meeting with workers and the firm resulted in sudden firings and, ultimately, class-action and discrimination lawsuits by eight workers. The suits were settled last week by Del Monte Fresh Produce Co. for $400,000 on behalf of hundreds of low-wage workers. The labor firm’s owners closed shop earlier this year and moved to Indiana. They’re now being chased by the workers and Del Monte for money.

What I left out of the story: QML apparently held a regular safety lottery at the plant, according to ex-workers and the hiring firm owner. When no workplace accidents occurred, QML handed out tickets like the one pictured, the workers said. The temp firm would draw a ticket and the worker with the matching ticket would receive a nifty $25 bonus.

In an interview with an Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries investigator last year, David Moore, whose wife owned the firm and who himself owned its predecessor, Quality Moore Labor, said the lottery was conducted “to promote safety.”

The workers’ attorney, Keith Cunningham-Parmeter, said the lottery actually was designed to discourage workers from reporting safety concerns. The lottery was suspended whenever a worker complained about a safety concern at the plant, the workers allege in their 2005 discrimination lawsuit. That suit was filed against QML, Moore and Del Monte in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Copies of the lottery tickets were attached to worker paystubs in the months of April, May and June 2003, Cunningham-Parmeter said.

Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division director Michael Wood said he’s heard of a variety of similar contests intended to promote worker safety, including one by a Washington employer offering a Corvette. These drawings aren’t the norm, he said, and if set up incorrectly, they can have a negative impact on workplace safety. That is, they can discourage complaints. Wood says employers need to be careful about setting up such an incentive program.

Wood’s agency found several serious safety violations late last year at the plant and fined Del Monte $1,400. But that action came after the agency twice failed to conduct inspections on the temporary labor firm, QML, in 2004.

What do you think? Is this lottery designed to help employees or employers? E-mail me by clicking on “E-mail Brent” in the upper right-hand corner of this page. Read on for more details, including tips on how to set up proper safety-incentive programs, research showing the vast underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses and the reasons why Oregon OSHA inspectors failed twice to conduct scheduled safety inspections on QML (Photo by Stephanie Yao/The Oregonian)….
Did workers at Del Monte in Portland have reason to be concerned about their workplace safety? Records at Oregon OSHA show they did, in part because the agency was thwarted when it tried to conduct a scheduled or surprise inspection of Del Monte’s temporary hiring firm.

According to records provided by Mr. Cunningham-Parmeter, an Oregon OSHA inspector scheduled an inspection of Quick Moore Labor, Inc., owned by David Moore, at 8711 N. Lombard St. in December 2004. But while holding an opening conference with the firm, the OSHA inspector discovered the business had changed its name several months eariler to Quality Manual Labor Inc., owned by Robin Moore. Since the business was a newly registered business, “no inspection was conducted,” according to an OSHA narrative.

Despite this discovery, a few months later, in February 2005, Oregon OSHA again tried to inspect Quick Moore Labor, Inc. This time, an inspector went to the firm’s mailing address in Aloha. There, the inspector discovered what he considered to be a residence with “no signs advertising a business,” agency records show. So, he cancelled the inspection.

Oregon OSHA spokesman Kevin Weeks said that under the agency’s criteria for random or surprise inspections, a business that changes its identity cannot be inspected. “We conduct inspections on employers, not on a work site,” Weeks said. “Once we find out that the identity of an employer has changed, that negates our ability to perform an inspection.”

Oregon OSHA finally undertook an inspection of the Del Monte plant on Nov. 17, 2005. During the visit, the agency found four serious violations of workplace safety rules.

According to records obtained from the agency, the inspector found the underside of the plant’s conveyor belt unguarded, posing serious injury risks to workers. The agency also found a machine with unguarded gear wheels where workers could have gotten their fingers or hands caught. And there were no procedures or training in place to protect workers from shock or accidental startup while they serviced or repaired plant machinery.

The agency fined Del Monte $1,400 fine for the violations, Weeks said, which the company has since paid.

Del Monte spokespeople have not returned two calls seeking comment on the workers’ allegations.

Regarding the lottery, Wood, Oregon OSHA’s director, said any workplace incentive program needs to be based on regular measurement tools and less on reports by workers. If all the guards are placed properly on a machine during spot checks, then a lottery will be held, he said. Otherwise, employers risk discouraging complaints, particularly if the incentives are worth large amounts of money.

“There is a fear,” he added, “and I think its legitimate, that an incentive program can promote what’s called a ‘Bloody-Hand Syndrome.” In other words, Wood said, when a worker cuts his hand on equipment at work, he stuffs it bleeding in his pocket. Either he or co-workers discourage him from reporting the accident so as not to suspend the regular lottery or incentive, Wood said.

“You want an incentive that is motivational but that isnt such a strong motivation that it discourages legitimate reporting,” Wood said. “Thats a really hard balance to strike, so incentive programs can be difficult to manage.”

Employers seeking information on incentive programs can call Oregon OSHA’s consultation program for confidential advice on how to set up a proper program. The numbers: 503-378-3272 in Salem or 503-229-6193 in Portland. The agency also puts on workshops for employers about setting up proper incentive and recognition programs, Wood said. The next workshops take place in Beaverton and Portland on Aug. 22 and 23, according to the agency’s website.

How bad is the workplace injury/illness underreporting problem?

Pretty significant, says Lance Compa, a labor law lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Compa, who’s studied working conditions in U.S. meat packing plants, said he’s never heard of a safety lottery. But he said some employers in the food processing industry pressure workers to avoid reporting safety hazards and accidents. And across all industries, Compa said, a growing body of research indicates that workplace accidents are well underreported.

Compa was the lead author of “Blood, Sweat and Fear: Workers’ Right in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants,” a 175-page report issued in 2005 by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy program.

In an interview with The Oregonian, Compa said a number of companies pay their managers bonuses for low accident rates. The intent might be to keep workers safer. But Compa said his interviews with workers suggested that, instead, managers discouraged them from complaining about pains and injuries on the job.

“The workers tell me the manager will tell the worker, ‘Oh you dont have a problem, go back to work,’” Compa said. “Supervisors put tremendous pressure on workers not to file complaints.”

One study released earlier this year by Michigan State University researchers found that U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on workplace safety might miss as many as two-thirds of work-related illnesses and injuries in its official count.

Another study by University of Massachusetts researchers in 2002 found that BLS data “significantly underestimates the incidence of work-related injuries and illnesses.” According to the study:

“Workers who report health problems to supervisors may risk
disciplinary action . . . or job loss. Others may fear such outcomes in the
absence of demonstrable risk. . . . Low-wage and immigrant workers are
especially likely to be fired or threatened for complaining.”

In another study, researchers at Wake Forest University conducted face-to-face interviews with 200 workers in the poultry industry in North Carolina. According to their 2005 report, workers, on average, reported experiencing more workplace-related illnesses and injuries than were reported to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

According to the study:

“For immigrant workers, a number of circumstances act as filters to reduce reporting, including language barriers, workers fear of losing their jobs, workers concerns about immigration status, incentive programs that reward low rates of absenteeism, and lack of access to health care.

Is I mentioned above, fraud is an extremely broad term that covers a large range of misdemeanours. Specifically, internet fraud refers to financial crimes that utilise the internet or associated services, such as email, to succeed.

The 5 most common forms of internet fraud are -

• Stolen credit cards
• Emails
• Lotteries
• Fake auctions
• Untrustworthy Websites

Stolen Credit Cards

Credit Card fraud across the internet is one of the more common examples of this type of crime.  Some people fall prey to this type of scam because they are careless whilst others are duped by clever phishing schemes.

These quick tips may help you lessen the risk of credit card fraud -

• Do not ever allow the card out of your sight
• Check your payment receipt every time and make sure the amount is correct
• Try not to write the pin number anywhere and memorize it well
• Get the card cancelled if misplaced in any case
• Be careful while making big transactions
• Be careful while responding to special offers online

Emails

Used as intended, email is a great means of communication that can allow messages to be sent to huge numbers of people at virtually no cost.  Unfortunately, this means that it is also an ideal medium for scam artists. Be aware of fake and fraudulent emails that attempt to trick you into revealing financial details, or into sending money to fund dubious schemes.

Avoid email scams by -

• Not trusting emails which appear to be from your bank
• Not clicking on links in emails which may go somewhere other than expected
• Not responding to emails that seek your personal information
• Ignoring emails that try to solicit funding for charities
• Not being so greedy that you fall for a 419 email

Lotteries

Fake lottery scams will try to persuade you that you’ve won a huge amount of money in an online draw. Of course, those behind this fraud then try to trick you into revealing your personal information as you try to collect your winnings.

Typically, you can work out that an email is a fake lottery because -

• You know that you never entered the lottery in question
• You are being asked to supply personal information
• The operator of the lottery requires a fee before releasing your ‘winnings’

Fake Auctions

Buying and selling goods through internet auction sites is an extremely popular pastime for some, and a great means of doing business for others. Unfortunately, scam artists have seen the potential of infiltrating online auction sites. Internet auction fraud is one of the most common rip-offs on the net today.

You can minimise the risks by -

• Being clear about where you want your goods shipped to
• Checking that the auction site itself is established and trustworthy
• Avoiding new sellers
• Using trackable means of of payment that offer protection against fraud
• Being clear about what exactly you are bidding on

Untrustworthy Websites

A slightly newer form of internet fraud is the fake website. Cyber criminals have begun mimicking established websites and then tricking visitors into interacting with them as if they were the real deal.

You can avoid fake websites by -

• Typing their address directly into your browser
• Never entering financial or personal data unless the URL begins with https://

The End

Online fraud is growing at an alarming rate. There is, however, no need to panic as most can be avoided by simply staying alert and looking for obvious signs, as detailed above.

Stay safe

The answer to that is obvious – the fraudsters behind lottery scams want money – your money. These fraudsters send out thousands of emails on a daily basis to unsuspecting victims, hoping to get at least one interested person who will foolishly reply to them. They will then lure their mark into their web of deceit by promising riches if only they pay the small fees required in order to have their winnings released. As more fees are paid, more problems will arise, each needing a small payment to overcome. When the victim realises that they have been duped and refuses to pay any more the fraudsters will disappear and will search out their next victim. Of course not all lottery scammers are merely after your money – your personal information can be of great value to them too. Credit card numbers, bank account information, social security numbers, etc all fetch a price on the black market. Becoming a victim of identity theft could be far worse than getting duped by a lottery scam.

ARE LOTTERY SCAMS CONVINCING?

Yes, absolutely. The people behind such scams have well-honed skills and know just what their victim is hoping they will say. They are smart enough to impersonate well known or respected figures in order to give their claims an air of legitimacy. Many of them will set up fake websites to take care of the banking as well as mimicking lottery and even government websites which they will use in order to convince their victims. Lottery fraudsters do, in fact, invest a huge amount of time and money into their crimes and so they are always trying to improve their skills in order to maximise the return on their investements.

WHY DO THOSE BEHIND LOTTERY SCAMS ASK FOR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

If someone is foolish enough to reply to the lottery scam email that pops up in their inbox then there is a good chance that a follow up will request their personal information. Typically this will only be used for falsifying paperwork that will be used to further dupe the victim into thinking that they really have won it big. In some cases, however, the fraudsters will use the personal data they have acquired in order to commit further crimes based around identity theft. Alternatively, some may sell that information onto other criminal contacts that they may have.

WHEN DO THE FRAUDSTERS ASK FOR MONEY?

Lottery scammers have learned that asking for money too early will blow their plans as some people will then figure out what is going on. Instead what they will do is build up a level of rapport and trust by exchanging maybe 4 or 5 emails before mentioning that there are some costs which will need to be paid. Legitimate lotteries will never ask for a fee before paying out the winnings but far too many people choose not to realise that until it is too late. When the victim is required to pay banking fees, storage fees, insurance fees, shipping fees, anti-money-laundering or drug certificate fees then they are most definitely being scammed. Should they actually receive documents or receipts for any fees that they do pay then they will be forgeries.

ARE ANY OF THESE LOTTERY EMAILS EVER TRUE?

NO. Legitimate companies and organisations do not notify people that they have won a lottery they didn’t even enter. Such emails do not come from the companies and countries that have been quoted in them but from shady internet cafes and boiler rooms. Emails from the ‘organisers’ will come from free-to-use services such as those offered by hotmail and yahoo. Such accounts are easily created and almost impossible to trace. If the fraudsters contact their victims by phone then they will use pre-paid mobiles, once again to assure their anonymity.

I LOST MONEY IN A LOTTERY SCAM, CAN I GET IT BACK?

Probably not. Lottery fraudsters are not, on the whole, stupid. They will have covered their tracks and their will be next to no chance of ever finding them. Even money that has been sent to them will be untraceable as they always use services such as Western Union. Fraudsters generally make use of false identities to collect these funds from money wiring services. Alternatively, they may pay a small fee to someone else to collect the money for them.

WHY AM I BEING INVITED TO TRAVEL TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY?

Some lottery fraudsters will try to entice their victims into meeting them in person. This is usually in order to allow them to make their con look even more convincing. The victim may be shown a trunk containing the money and even be taken to fraudulent banks, companies, etc. in order to lend credence to their scams. Lottery fraudsters have been known to  infiltrate banks in order to make use of actual banking documents and officials in order to assist in meeting and defrauding victims who travel to their countries. Not only can these victims lose their money but they can also be kidnapped, assaulted and even murdered.

I’VE SEEN A LOTTERY WEBSITE SO IT MUST BE LEGIT, RIGHT?

No. Many fraudsters buy and register their own domain names and then pay webmasters to copy existing and legitimate lottery websites. They will then use a contact form which routes directly to them in order to complete the illusion of a legitimate site and organisation. Fraudsters also often create fraudulent banking websites, courier websites and simple lottery websites in order to defraud their victims.

Such data-transfer scenarios are where the new Super­­Speed USB 3.0 standard and its theoretical, blazing-fast through­­put of 5 gigabits per second–as promised by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF)–will change your life for the better. And if our tests of four new USB 3.0 hard drives from Buffalo Technology, Iomega, Seagate, and Western Digital are indicative, the change will be dramatic.

USB 3.0’s impressive speed is its raison d’être, but part of its beauty is its backward compatibility with USB 2.0. You need a new cable and a new host adapter (or one of the new motherboards built to support USB 3.0) to achieve USB 3.0 performance. But you can still use a USB 3.0 device on a USB 2.0 port and achieve typical USB 2.0 performance. You may also use USB 2.0 devices on a USB 3.0 port–though, again, with no gain in speed.

The technology behind USB 3.0 more closely resembles PCI Express than USB 2.0. Backward compatibility comes from clever connector design, and a dual bus. The designers added four data lines and a ground wire for the new USB 3.0 signals, and retained the existing pair of data lines for use with USB 2.0 devices. The two technologies share the existing power and ground wires, but they are otherwise completely separated.

As such, the USB 3.0 connector has design changes to accommodate the extra data lines. If you examine the inside of a type A USB 3.0 port with its familiar rectangular shape closely, you’ll see that it shares the same size as a USB 2.0 port as well as the original four USB 1.1/2.0 contacts.

However, the port also has an additional five smaller contacts for the new USB 3.0 lines. When you plug in a 2.0 connector, it uses the four original contacts; when you plug in a USB 3.0 connector, it taps into the other five. Because motherboards and PCs will ship with both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, their insulating plastic, by specification (to distinguish them) must be bright blue on USB 3.0 ports, but black on USB 2.0 ports. Similar tricks have been used for the type B and mini connectors.

Another potential benefit of USB 3.0: The spec calls for a mere one-third of the power consumption USB 2.0 uses. The creators achieved that by reducing some of the background maintenance re­­quirements of USB; unlike before, with USB 3.0 the interface transmits data only to the link and device that need that info, which allows other attached devices to go into a low-power state when not needed. The change ap­­plies only to the USB bus, not to the power that USB peripherals require or use for their own operation-although getting things done faster ultimately means using less power, as well.

The USB 3.0 revolution is coming, as many SuperSpeed USB 3.0-certified products are now shipping, including host controllers, adapter cards, motherboards (from Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, and others), and hard drives. But it won’t be an immediate switch: According to In-Stat Research, it will be 2013 when more than one-quarter of USB products support SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

Iomega’s Zippy, 2TB eGo Desktop USB 3.0 external drive.That slow transition isn’t particularly surprising, considering that no compatible peripherals or consumer electronics devices have even been announced so far. Some devices, such as keyboards and mice, won’t benefit from SuperSpeed USB’s increased performance. Other products, such as digital cameras and camcorders, will; we anticipate seeing USB 3.0 start to appear on this class of de­­vices sometime in 2011.

High Performance

Buffalo’s contoured USB 3.0 HD-HXU3 drive.The theoretical improvement in throughput that USB 3.0 offers is certainly dramatic–a 10X jump to 5 gbps over the existing USB 2.0 spec, which maxed out at a theoretical 480 mbps.

But how does USB 3.0 fare in the real world? Pretty darn well, it turns out.

To determine the veracity of the USB-IF’s claims, we ran four SuperSpeed USB 3.0 drives through our test suite, which in­­cludes batch operations on a large set of small files, transfers of very large files, and a virus scan test that em­­pha­sizes a hard drive’s seek speed. Three models were 3.5-inch external desktop units: Buffalo’s $200 DriveStation USB 3.0 HD-HXU3, Iomega’s $240 eGo Desktop USB 3.0, and Western Digital’s $200 My Book 3.0. The fourth drive was Seagate’s $180, 2.5-inch, portable BlackArmor PS 110.

Three drives came formatted in the NTFS file system, which is more efficient than the FAT32 file system in which the Buffalo drive was formatted. (FAT32’s only benefit is that both Macs and PCs can read and write to the drive.) Fortunately, Buffalo provides an option to reformat the drive as NTFS; we used it, and all of our test results reflect this.

In PCWorld Labs tests, the drives assessed using USB 3.0 consistently proved noticeably faster than when using FireWire 800 (by as much as a third). And we found the USB 3.0 drives to be comparable in speed with eSATA drives (over a SATA-300 interface); the eSATA drives typically edged out the USB 3.0 units on a couple of our performance metrics.

By comparison, USB 2.0 looked like a dog cart in the Kentucky Derby. Depending on the test, USB 3.0 proved to be up to 3.5 times as fast and always more than double USB 2.0’s speed.

Of the three desktop-size models (each with a 3.5-inch hard drive inside), the Western Digital My Book 3.0 was fastest overall, with the Buffalo and Iomega drives finishing right behind it. The drives were separated by mere seconds on almost all of our read and write tests; we saw the greatest distinction on our malware scan test, with a span of 24 seconds between the fastest (Western Digital) and the slowest (Buffalo).

Western Digital’s desktop-size My Book 3.0 drive.Portable drives always lag their desktop counterparts in performance, simply be­­cause of their slower rpm (rotations per minute) speeds. As such, it’s no surprise that the portable Seagate BlackArmor PS 110 was not as fast as the desktop drives evaluated here. However, among the portable drives we’ve tested, this model leaped into second place; only the WiebeTech ToughTech XE Mini 500GB, tested over eSATA, bested Seagate’s USB 3.0 portable.

In PCWorld Labs power consumption tests, we found that the average power draw at any given time for the USB 3.0 drives was slightly greater than that of USB 2.0 while data was transferring. However, since USB 3.0 does things far more quickly, multiplying the average draw over time shows it doing roughly twice the work per watt.

Beyond performance measurements, USB 3.0 has a huge edge in convenience over eSATA. Unlike eSATA, USB 3.0 was designed with re­­movable storage in mind. It’s hot-pluggable–you simply plug in a device, and your operating system quickly adds it to the list of available devices. By contrast, eSATA drives nearly always require a system reboot to appear.

Furthermore, since USB 3.0 is a powered port, you don’t necessarily have to run another external power supply to the drive as you normally do with eSATA drives. Most 3.5-inch hard drives, however, require more power than the USB bus can deliver, and those models will still need AC adapters.

Certified USB 3.0

One of the things to look for when buying a USB 3.0 product is the certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 logo–a label that will ensure that the product you’re purchasing truly lives up to the new specification.

At this point, though, expect companies to release USB 3.0 products without official certification or the SuperSpeed logo. An example is the Buffalo Technology HD-HXU3, which was the first drive to market; and La­­Cie’s drives, which are in the process of certification, will initially carry LaCie’s own logo for USB 3.0 (the company says it plans to put a sticker on the products’ box once certification is completed).

One good thing: This time around, you won’t have to worry about whether you’re really getting the promised speeds. In the transition from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0, the creators of the latter spec wrote it in such a way that products didn’t have to communicate at the full 480 mbps in order to be called “USB 2.0.” In contrast, for a product to be certified as supporting USB 3.0, it must operate at the full 5 gbps.

Upgrade Possibilities

It’s easy to upgrade to USB 3.0 on the desktop: You can buy adapter cards on the aftermarket for approximately $30, pay extra for a card from Buffalo ($70), or choose the Western Digital drive that includes a card (which carries a $20 premium over the version of the drive sold without the card).

With laptops, however, upgrading will be a tougher road. Unless your portable has an ExpressCard slot to accept an adapter such as the one that ships with the Seagate BlackArmor PS 110, you’re not going to be able to add USB 3.0 to the notebook that you have now.

Seagate wisely ships its portable PS 110 USB 3.0 drive with an ExpressCard adapter.New laptops, though, will be a different story–eventually. So far only HP and Fujitsu have an­­nounced limited USB 3.0 support on laptops. Taiwanese laptop and desktop manufacturer MSI says it won’t have USB 3.0 until the third quarter of this year, at the earliest. Product managers for both laptop and desktop makers cite manufacturing concerns such as having chipsets available in large quantities, and the need to test USB 3.0 chipsets, as reasons for the delay.

The Final Word

Speed, backward compatibility, power consumption…USB 3.0 more than lives up to the hype. It’s only marginally slower than eSATA, and is far better suited to removable storage.

eSATA may yet pull farther ahead, especially once external enclosures built with 6-gbps SATA (SATA-600) come to market. However, now that USB 3.0 is here, we wouldn’t be surprised to see eSATA lose traction to USB 3.0–at least in the general, non-high-performance consumer market. FireWire 800 is in a similar position: Aside from Mac support, FireWire 800 provides no tangible benefit over USB 3.0.

In the end, the real question is, do you want to have the speed of USB 3.0? We certainly do.

Don’t Get Stung by High Prices for USB 3.0 Products

Whenever any new technology hits the streets, “entrepreneurs” ready to gouge consumers are rarely far behind. USB 3.0, aka SuperSpeed USB, was designed to be no more expensive than USB 1.1 or 2.0-but we’ve already seen vendors charging exorbitant prices for cables, adapters, and hubs. After all, USB 3.0 is brand-new and far faster than USB 2.0, so you must have to pay hefty early-adopter premiums, right? Wrong.

USB 3.0 has new connectors like this mini USB unit.We understand that product development takes money, and we see nothing wrong with, say, a 25 percent premium on a drive or cable. For instance, while Western Digital’s My Book Elite costs $170, the My Book 3.0 costs $200–not a bad deal since the latter is so much faster. But it’s ludicrous for Belkin to charge $40 for a 3-foot USB 3.0 cable, when USB3.com and Directron.com each charge just $6. Likewise, for a USB 3.0 host adapter, Belkin wants $90 and Buffalo Technology is charging $81–while at USB3.com you pay only $30, and at Directron.com the adapter price is a still-economical $37.

We could find just one USB 3.0 hub–Buffalo Technology’s BSH4A03U3–even mentioned, and it’s only now showing up in Japan for about $88. But there’s no big benefit to a USB 3.0 hub yet, since mice and keyboards will never be able to use the extra speed, and USB 3.0 flash drives are nowhere close to being mass-market products.

When you’re shopping for USB 3.0 technology, don’t plop down 40 bucks for a cable just because you think that because USB 3.0 is new, it must be expensive. It’s not supposed to be. Also, make sure any product you buy has the SuperSpeed logo on the box. Some USB products will undoubtedly play games with the number 3 on their boxes or logos, hoping to snare the unwitting into purchasing older 2.0 or non-USB 3.0-certified technology.

Photographs: ROBERT CARDIN