Consumer Reports articles from January 2001

Consumer Reports archives from January 2001

Selling it.(misleading or funny ads, labels)(Column)
January 1, 2001... Fax facts. The questions come via fax, and are clearly designed to attract attention. Among them: * "Should gun law be seriously tightened?" * "Jerry Springer--Is he the king of chat or a wind-up freak?" * "Should public...

Moving megabytes: transferring files.(TechLife)
January 1, 2001... Congratulations. You've just bought a new computer and found a place to recycle the old one. Now all you have to do is perform a brain transplant, moving all the programs and files from the old machine to the new. You can handle the transplant...

Shed excess holiday debt.(Your Money)
January 1, 2001... 'Tis the season--to pay up, that is. For the better part of the year, millions of prudent consumers carefully manage their credit-card debt and try to pay off their balance in full each month. But with the end of the holiday travel and shopping...

Super-germ alert: how to avoid antibiotic misuse and overuse.(Your Health)
January 1, 2001... The long-simmering problem of antibiotic resistance seems to be nearing the boiling point. More than two-thirds of the bacterial infections acquired in U.S. hospitals and about half of the common bacterial infections in outpatients do not...

Thinking inside the box: we pit the redesigned Dodge Grand Caravan against four popular competitors.(Minivans)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2001... On the whole, minivans have an unglamorous, functional, domestic-oriented image that typically does not inspire much excitement in buyers. Many people, it seems, get more-or-less backed into buying one by a growing family. Image aside, though,...

New types of vacuum cleaners gain ground.(Product Updates)(Buyers Guide)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2001... If you can believe a recent poll by Yankelovich Partners, many Americans find a spotless house more satisfying than sex. That seems pretty far-fetched, but there's no doubt we're willing to spend big to banish dust balls from our homes: Vacuum...

Top-loaders meet the front-loader challenge.(washing machines)(Product Updates)(Buyers Guide)
January 1, 2001... As front-loading washing machines have gained in popularity in the U.S. over the past few years, they've raised the bar for overall washing-machine performance. Front-loaders, which tumble clothes much like dryers do, have generally outshone...

Alive and clicking: there's still a place for film in a digital world.(cameras)(Buyers Guide)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2001... To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of film cameras have been greatly exaggerated. The new digital cameras may be intriguing and growing in popularity, but film-camera use has been growing, too. You can buy a good compact...

The easy energy-savers: electronic thermostats can make cutting energy bills a no-brainer.(Buyers Guide)
January 1, 2001... Rising heating bills and the threat of heating-oil shortages this winter have given energy conservation renewed urgency. And if you live in a warm-weather area, odds are you've also felt the pinch as the cost of keeping cool skyrockets....

The big sweep.(wet/dry cleaners)(Buyers Guide)
January 1, 2001... Unlike their genteel house-vac cousins, wet/dry vacuums are meant for life's meaner tasks. Their place is typically in the basement workshop or garage, where their multigallon capacities and appetite for sawdust, wood chips, spilled liquids,...

Is assisted living the right choice?(book excerpt - Consumer Reports Complete Guide to Health Services For Seniors)(Excerpt)(Buyers Guide)
January 1, 2001... Perhaps you've been worrying about Mom lately. Her arthritis keeps her from taking care of the house, and she has so much trouble reading fine print that you wonder how she can keep track of her medications. Some days she doesn't feel like...

Recalls: vehicles and equipment; household products.
January 1, 2001... Vehicles and equipment. * '98-99 Cadillac DeVille Side-impact air bags could deploy suddenly and unexpectedly. Models: 224,000 cars made 3/4/97 to 8/2/99. According to Cadillac, there have been 306 reports of inadvertent air-bag...

New assault on your credit rating: subprime credit scoring.(Buyers Guide)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2001... If you walked into a CitiFinancial office in Middletown, N.Y., in October, you could have taken out a home-equity loan with an annual interest rate of anywhere from 10.5 to 18 percent. You'd have to go through the trouble of applying for a loan...

New ways to surf the web.(Technology Preview)
January 1, 2001... The Internet is quickly changing from a gee-whiz novelty to an everyday necessity--an information utility as ubiquitous as electric power and natural gas. But before an Internet lifestyle can become universal, new services as well as existing...

It's the lease you can do.(Auto Leasing - Report)(Buyers Guide)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2001... One out of every three new cars, minivans, sport-utility vehicles, and light trucks consumers drive off dealer lots these days is financed by a lease. That's up from fewer than one in ten a decade ago. Clearly, the emergence of leasing marks...

The marketer's meow.(Cue Cat home bar code reader)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2001... Convergence--the heralded melding of print and broadcast media with the Internet--is likely to take years to develop, if it happens. Marketers have tried to jump-start the process with the Cue Cat, a plastic bar-code reader that's free at...

Two CO alarms.(Product Test)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2001... If you use fuel-burning appliances--a gas or oil furnace, a gas stove, a kerosene heater, or a wood-burning stove or fireplace--your home should have a carbon monoxide (CO) alarm. Furnaces or appliances that aren't working correctly or that...

Food for thought: what's a serving?
January 1, 2001... You've cut back on red meat and snacks to achieve a healthy diet and maintain your weight. But the number on the scale keeps creeping up. What's wrong? Maybe your portions. Supersized servings that make restaurant dinners look like a...

First look: Ford Explorer Sport Trac.(Evaluation)
January 1, 2001... What'll it be, pickup or SUV? For hauling dirty stuff, a pickup is better. But an SUV makes room for the family and keeps your cargo out of the rain. The 2001 Ford Explorer Sport Tracis some of both--a conventional, five-seat ExplorerSUV with a...

Oh, you wanted our 'cheapest' rate?(long-distance marketing)
January 1, 2001... Now here's a phone call you don't want to get: a demand from AT&T that you pay your $3,300 long-distance bill. Reader Tony Nino of Altadena, Calif., got such a call this fall. "I was sure it was fraudulent charges," he says. He subscribed...

21st century consumer.(US - statistics)
January 1, 2001... Here's a statistical snapshot of the American consumer: Median income, at $40,816 per household, is more princely than almost any nation's, and many of us have the stuff to show for it. But we also have record levels of credit-card debt, and we...

Don't leave homeroom without it?(reloadable prepayed credit cards for teens)
January 1, 2001... For parents tired of listening to their teens' piteous (and frequent) imprecations for cash, four companies have introduced reloadable payment cards for kids 13 to 17 that look and behave almost like grown-up credit cards. There are no interest...

Oh, what a tangled web.(Internet commerce and consumer protection)(Consumers Union In Action)(Column)
January 1, 2001... Type "travel," "deals," and a destination into certain Internet search engines and you'll get a long list of web sites to explore. You may think they're listed in order of relevance or best prices; actually, some such sites pay for a high...