Here is an excellent alternative use of circuit boards.
A lot of the websites where you buy something show offers for stuff when (and after) you check out. Here's what's happening at a few of them. After completing a purchase, a person clicks on the 10% off next purchase coupon. They enter their email address and they click to pursue the offer. Before they know it they are being billed $10 dollars a month for a service they don't recall signing up for.
A US Senate report finds several online companies engaging in deception. Looks like a kinda boring story at first, third party app companies, bla bla. But wait. These next two points want to be in all caps and it is very difficult to suppress that right now so I will separate them out BUT LOOK -
After you buy something online, when you click on a post transaction offer, the company you just bought from can hand over your credit card number to a third party, and after that you don't have to enter much to be charged. Consumers do not expect this.
The companies that hand over your information get money from the deceptive third party bla blas. This is how they thank you for making a purchase.
It's true, it's shameful and it has happened to me. While the third parties - in this case Affinion, Vertrue, and WebLoyalty aren't tip-of-the-mind for most of us, the shame is on those few of their 450 clients that participate in profits from these deceptions.
Washington State's Attorney General, Robert McKenna, declared
"I cannot overstate the consumer injury that is occurring because of these marketing methods. Based upon our office’s investigations, we estimate that well over $50 million has been deceptively obtained from Washington consumers over the course of the last four years by a relatively small handful of businesses conducting the type of marketing at issue in this Committee’s investigation."
At least we're bringing it back home. Classmates.com made $70 million last year from this. Read report here.
If you've ever wondered if anyone ever tried to determine how much it costs us to deal with spam, the answer is oh, yeah. Explore what Google thinks it costs you by using their Postini services Return On Investment calculator found here: Spam Costs Calculator
Using their calculator, dealing with as few as 15 spam messages a day will cost you one full 8-hour day of productivity in a year. Multiply that per employee and spam filters become your friend.
Energy, that is. I'm mostly talking about electronic energy usage, 'cause that's what I think about, but we must put this in context: it won't matter what state you leave your audio or PC in if your energy is flying out your under-protected windows or wasted heating the house when no one is home. Electronic usage changes create much smaller savings, but they are savings and They Add Up.
There is a cool calculator here that you can use to see approximately how much energy you use with your electronic equipment and even better, how much it costs per year. You can experiment with changing your usage and see what it might save you: http://www.mygreenelectronics.org/EnergyCalculator.aspx
A room with a TV, cable box, computer and cordless phone costs $25.96 each year even if they were never turned on! And technology choices make a difference - a 17" CRT (80W and very old school) costs $66 per year vs $29 for a 17" LCD monitor (35W). Be careful with large HD displays, however. They can burn watts like - nevermind, Watts burning... I'm back in time.......Sorry. Some HD displays use the same amount of electricity as a refrigerator.
If you buy a big HD display (and please do!) this season, be sure and have your AV Professional calibrate it for your viewing room. I'm thinking your display will not have to compete with 11 other displays at your house. Brightness often can (and should) be dialed down for better viewing. It also just happens to result in less energy used/wasted.
The AV industry is addressing energy usage; many pieces of audio equipment will have an Energy Star rating in the near future, and displays will cease their escalating energy usage if they want to sell to anyone in California. The California Energy Commission recently mandated stricter energy usage limits for displays. After 2011 no TV with a screen size under 58" may be sold there unless it meets these newly specified limits.
Since it is not just flu season but swine flu, er I mean H1N1 season, thought I'd remind everyone that keyboards have often tested heavier in bacterial contamination than toilet seats.
I bring this up not to bring you down, but to encourage you to keep a pack of disinfectanl wipes handy and use them to wipe down your keyboard periodically. Always make sure your machine is off first, and don't press too hard or rub hard on the keys if you plan on reading them later. If you're not squeamish you can read about one of the studies here.
The wipes work great for germs and unsightly guk on keys, but an official keyboard cleaning entails first dislodging crumbs and stuff and vacuuming or blowing all debris away, then thoroughly cleaning keys and keyboard surface. Debris removal is important because the crumbs from lunch become a feast for bacteria. I have known computer shops to run a load of keyboards through a dishwasher cycle and it worked great, but you have to know your keyboards.
If a clean keyboard becomes a priority for you, you can find purpose-built keyboards. Some are built to be waterproof, making cleaning easy. Another method is to kill germs with UV light (See Vioguard at techgadgets here), and the most controversial is the nanosilver surface technology said to kill 99% of 650 bacteria within 24 hours. (See Samsung's Nanosilver laptop for example.)
The list of horrible things hackers can do using your machine is long, but this cuts to the chase and is the best reason ever for protecting your computer.
Dell released a study that blew my mind. Over 12,000 laptops are lost in US airports each week! Dude, seriously. The study breaks it down: which airports, where in the airport, if the laptops get reclaimed...Dell commissioned the report from Ponemon Institute Look for >"Airport Insecurity, The Case of lost laptops" from June 2008.
Their study included 106 major US airports in 46 states. Of the 12,255 estimated laptops lost each week, only 33% are reclaimed. Over 40% of business traveller respondents didn't have their data backed up, and 65% admit they didn't protect or secure the data on their laptop.
Slowdowns can be caused by viruses, malware, and just plain software crap – program detritus. Here are the three areas to address when you're ready to speed up.
My computer keeps rebooting and I'm getting sick of it. Should I buy a new computer?
My boss dropped her purse on her keyboard and now her display is sideways! Can this be fixed or should she just sit her monitor on it's side?
This is not a problem, this is a feature! Displays can be rotated 90 degrees with a key-press combination toggle, which just means you find your machine's keyboard key combo and press it repeatedly until the display lines up the way you want it to. Google “display rotation + brand” for your particular brand of machine – the computer, not the monitor. It's usually a combination like control-alt-up arrow.
Imagine what a useful feature this is for digital signage folks, who often find themselves solving tricky mounting, venting, and visibility issues and are happy for every tool they can get. What better way to flip a bank of 20 170-lb displays that were mounted upside down because the cords wouldn't reach because the subs put the outlet boxes on the opposite side ........ not that that could ever happen.
My kids use my computer for their MySpace, but after every weekend I spend all day Monday scanning for and removing spyware. Should I make them stop?
Protect the machine and let them use the computer. As long as there are rules for the kids' personal safety, computers can be customized for use and protected.
Download and install the program Spybot Search and Destroy from here. This is a free program but I encourage you to donate 'cause this is going to save you a ton of time (you won't have to scan as often) and keep your machine clean.
In October 2008 Microsoft released a very, very important update. There is a new computer worm going around and it has infected an estimated 9.5 million computers and counting. The scary thing is, even though they have been grappling with this horrible bug and seeing infections skyrocket, no one knows what the payload is yet; that is, they don't know what the program will do to 10 million machines - or what 10 million machines will do to us.
This worm is sometimes called Downadup, sometimes Conficker. It will take you places you do not want to go. Please update your operating system and your applications. Always. Thank you.
