Silverado redo earns its awards

Never one to shy from a full-sized pickup truck fight, Chevy redesigned the 2014 Silverado 1500 by trimming some weight, updating the interior and reworking the engine to improve gas mileage. And for this year it's captured Truck of the Year honors from the North American Truck and Car Awards and Motor Trend.

Going nose to nose with the Ford F150, Dodge Ram and Toyota Tundra, Chevy throws its elbows around by combining a refined ride and burly off-road capabilities. Underneath the good-looking body are upgraded shocks, underbody shields and a heavy-duty air cleaner.

Our spacious crew cab tester was fitted out with the Z71 package, upscaling the truck with a luxury finished leather cabin, Bose stereo, a full array of built-in electronics including a 110-volt outlet, five USB outlets, Bluetooth and MyLink. Along with hill and trailer descent controls the $850 Driver Alert package provides a seat vibrating alarm when you're too close or have strayed from your lane. The back-up camera is helpful even though the rear vision is excellent.

The V-8 5.3-liter ECOtec3 engine makes 355 horsepower providing 11,000 pounds of towing and you'll be hard-pressed to know when the fuel-saving cylinder deactivation feature kicks in turning the V-8 into a gas sipping V-4. It also has good acceleration and the 6-speed transmission is smooth. Rated mileage for this engine is 16 miles per gallon in the city and 22 on the highway. The quiet and compliant Silverado is a nice-riding truck owing to improved shocks and dampers. But don't let the smooth ride fake you out. You'll still get some bumping about on rough roads so keep the lid on your coffee.

During my test period I battled a couple of decent snowstorms and the all-wheel drive was flawless. I simply left the Auto setting on and never even had to give it a second thought, confidently plowing through piles of snow, slush and ice.

The exterior, at first glance, hasn't changed much. A huge, squared off, heavily chromed front end remains while some body sculpting creates better aerodynamics. The EZ Lift tailgate and bed include step-up slots in the bumper and hand grips on the rails. LED lighting is new for both the interior and exterior. The crew doors have been changed to front hinges squeaking out a couple of extra inches of interior space.

Even with all the creature comforts added on, the core of the Silverado is a workhorse. Fitted out with either a 5-foot 8-inch or 6-foot 6-inch bed, you're talking about maxing out the payload to nearly a ton. So while you're not going to want to hose out the interior of a leather-laden Z71, it still means business on the worksite, yet will clean up for an evening in the city. And hey, it's a truck, so there's plenty of personal storage space starting with a huge padded center console, two glove boxes and cup holders galore.

Despite recent accolades, Silverados aren't moving off the lots quickly so excellent deals can be had.

With a base of $43,650, our tester with the LTZ Plus Package upgrade priced out at $50,475 — it's a big ticket but competitively positioned. All that being said some model Silverados can be leased for as little as $170 per month.

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Stock investors hit from all sides in January

NEW YORK — Stock investors were hit from all sides in January.

Concerns about the global economy and U.S. company earnings, as well as turmoil in emerging markets, led the Dow Jones industrial average to its worst start since 2009. However, many investors remain hopeful that the problems will not spill over into the rest of 2014.

They even see the downturn as healthy, given the U.S. market's rapid rise last year.

The Dow slid 5.3 percent in January while the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 3.6 percent and the Nasdaq composite declined 1.7 percent.

Investors entered the year with some degree of skepticism and nervousness. The stock market went basically straight up in 2013. The S&P 500 index ended 2013 with a gain of nearly 30 percent, its best year since 1997.

"No amount of negative news could derail the market last year," said Jonathan Corpina, a floor trader at the New York Stock Exchange with Meridian Equity Partners.

But no stock market can go straight up forever.

Many investors expected 2014 to be a more muddled and volatile year for the market. Market strategists late last year were looking for the S&P 500 index to notch a modest gain of 4 percent to 6 percent, ending in the range of 1,850 to 1,900.

Investors were also looking for more pullbacks this year and possibly a correction, the technical term for when a stock market index like the S&P 500 falls 10 percent or more. Three months ago, analysts at Goldman Sachs said there was roughly a 60 percent chance that a correction would happen this year.

"People did look at these stock market valuations at the beginning of the year with a degree of nervousness," said David Kelly, chief market strategist with J.P. Morgan Funds. "A correction would probably be healthy for the market."

But many investors were surprised by January's turbulence. With one exception, the Dow had triple-digit moves every trading day in January.

Still, with the broader S&P 500 index down just 3.6 percent from its January 15 peak, the downturn is hardly severe.

"There's been some negative news out there — the economic data, corporate earnings and what's now going on in emerging markets — but I'm not convinced the headlines are bad enough to be a catalyst to push us into a correction," Corpina said.

Investors point to the December jobs report, released on Jan. 10, as the event that started the troubles. The U.S. government said employers created only 74,000 jobs in December, the worst month for job creation in since 2011 and far below expectations.

Up until then, weeks of data showed the U.S. economic recovery was accelerating. U.S. companies were selling record levels of goods overseas; layoffs had dwindled; and the Federal Reserve was pulling back on its economic stimulus program, citing an improving economy.

Many investors called the December jobs report as a statistical fluke. But the report has weighed on stocks all month, investors say.

"It set a negative tone for the market," Kelly said.

Other economic reports also painted a picture of U.S. economic growth possibly flattening out instead of accelerating.

Investors combined these economic worries with mixed signals from U.S. companies.

Wall Street is in the middle of earnings season, when the country's major corporations report results for the final three months of the year. Half of the members of the S&P 500 have reported, and the results have been mixed. While fourth-quarter corporate earnings are up a respectable 7.9 percent from a year earlier, companies have been cutting their full-year outlooks and reporting weaker sales, according to data provider FactSet.

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, said Friday that earnings may come in at the low end or below its prior forecasts. It also expects sales at stores open at least a year to be flat. The company previously forecast that sales would be modestly higher.

Wal-Mart's forecast echo the comments from Macy's, Target, Best Buy and other retailers.

Of the companies who have reported so far, 44 companies have cut their full-year profit outlooks while 10 have increased their outlooks, according to data from FactSet.

Adding to concerns about the U.S. economy and earnings were problems in overseas markets.

The bad news started with China. A recent report showed manufacturing activity in the world's second-largest economy unexpectedly contracted in January. The report added to other recent signs that the Chinese economy was slowing down after years of massive growth.

Then came currency troubles in smaller emerging markets, particularly Turkey, South Africa and Argentina.

All three saw their currencies fall sharply against the dollar, as investors began to pull out of emerging markets and return their money to less-risky parts of the globe.

"These governments were financing themselves with (foreign investor money), and now that these investors are looking to go home, there's no source of money to replace them," said Krishna Memani, chief investment officer at Oppenheimer Funds.

On Friday, the U.S. stock market closed out January on another down note. The Dow fell 149.76 points, or 0.9 percent, to 15,698.85. The S&P 500 dropped 11.60 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,782.59 and the Nasdaq lost 19.25 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,103.88.

Investors shouldn't panic yet, money managers say.

They will get the January jobs report next week. Also, another 93 members of the S&P 500 are scheduled to report earnings.

"A 5 percent decline in equities is not an earthshattering event by any measure, particularly after last year," Memani said. "It's still way too early to give up on equities."

___

AP Business Writer Alex Veiga contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

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They’re sold on Magoun Square

If you want to gauge the energy in Somerville's Magoun Square, take a look at the retail storefronts and the empty lots and old garage sites filling up with new housing.

Two years ago there were about a dozen empty storefronts in the retail district at the intersection of Broadway and Medford Street, but now there's a new sign and new venues such as Daddy Jones Bar, Modelo Butcher Market, K-2 Beer & Wine shop and Pennypacker's, a food truck gone brick and mortar, joining the popular Olde Magoun's Saloon.

Winchester natives Greg Huber, 29, and Leah Gallagher, 27, bought a top floor condo in an old Victorian here less than a year ago and already two new single-family houses have sprouted up across the street. Side-by-side auto body and glass shops will soon be sites for about 25 units, the Sons of Italy wants to add housing to its property, and there's talk of other deals recently signed or about to be.

"We're thrilled that we bought in Magoun Square," said Gallagher, who commutes to her financial services job in downtown Boston. "We have friends our age who are also looking to buy here because housing is still reasonably priced and it's a great neighborhood to raise a family."

The Magoun neighborhood got a big boost with the 2012 opening of Maxwell's Green, a successful 199-unit high-end apartment and townhouse complex built on a brownfields former factory site — a project that drew the attention of Huber and Gallagher to the area. And then there's the long-delayed Green Line extension from Lechmere, which will stop along Lowell Street when it opens in 2018. And the Somerville bike path is coming up to the area from Davis Square this spring.

Longtime residents such as Courtney O'Keefe, a former alderman and advocate for the neighborhood, knows that the area her parents moved to 30 years ago to open a sub shop is about to change.

"You'd like to keep it as a little secret, a hidden gem, but the word is getting out," said O'Keefe, 33, who moved back. "But there is some room for growth here that fits in with the neighborhood and maintains what's now a nice balance between longtimers and newcomers."

O'Keefe adds that the rebirth of the retail district has been more important than the promise of the Green Line. "I've been saying all along not to put all our eggs in the Green basket," she said.

Other Somerville locals such as Dimitra Tsourianis Murphy also see the potential. After working for the Lyons Group opening and managing hip Hub venues, she returned to her roots and bought a building in Magoun Square and just over a year ago opened Daddy Jones Bar, a cocktail bar with Greek food and a neighborhood feel that draws natives and newcomers.

"Magoun Square used to be a drive-through area and now there's a reason to pause here," said the 33-year-old Murphy, who says the square could use some clothing shops as well as a local business association. "I'm seeing a lot of young families moving in, which is really great for the neighborhood."

You can still buy a single-family here in the mid-$400,000s, unlike Davis Square a mile away where housing prices are astronomical. Few want to see that happen in Magoun, but condo conversions are picking up.

"There's still old-timers here with two-family houses who live in one unit and rent the other to one of their kids," said Ted Tobin of KSS Realty, which co-developed Maxwell's Green. "But there's more young buyers looking to get in on the ground floor of something special. Being able to wake up and have places to go in your own square adds to the appeal. This area has a bright future."

Huber and Gallagher are already thinking of buying an investment property in the neighborhood.

"I'm a real believer in Magoun Square," said Huber, who commutes to his medical sales job in Burlington. "It's a nice, homey place, and the retail area has just taken off. There's no doubt it's up and coming."

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Porter Sq. Galleria goes to L.A. firm

The Porter Square Galleria has a new owner under a $35.55 million deal that closed yesterday.

Los Angeles real estate investment management firm CBRE Global Investors bought the 57,265-square-foot retail center from KS Partners.

Built in 1989, the property is 100 percent leased, with a two-level Walgreens, Anna's Taqueria, Potbelly Sandwich Shop and Rock'N Fitness as tenants.

"This is part of our urban retail plan for a fund that is sponsored by CBRE Global Investors," senior managing director Kim Hourihan said. "We loved the location, being right at a T stop and ... sort of the crossroads there in Cambridge."

The galleria is an "urban retail trophy" in a highly developed area, which is very popular now with investors, said a source close to the deal, who also cited the square's "great" demographics.

KS Partners, a real estate investment and development company with offices in Woburn and New York, could not be reached.

The sale was brokered by Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, which declined comment.

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Neiman Marcus breach hits 19,000 Bay Staters

The credit and debit card information of more than 19,000 Massachusetts residents was among the data accessed by hackers who breached Neiman Marcus Group's point-of-sales system.

The number likely is greater because the luxury retailer doesn't have the addresses for about 31 percent of the owners of the 1.1 million cards possibly compromised during the breach from last July 16 through Oct. 30, the company divulged in a letter to the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation this week.

Of the approximately 2,400 payment cards that already have been used for fraudulent transactions, 47 of them belong to Massachusetts residents, Neiman's general counsel said in the Jan. 25 letter. That number also could grow, because Neiman has the addresses of just 71 percent of those card-holders.

The letter also revealed that while the malware that allowed hackers to collect, or "scrape," customer card data was installed on the company's system as early as last July, separate, related malware that enabled the scraping to occur "appears to have been clandestinely inserted earlier in 2013."

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Web attack traffic soars

The U.S. had the third-highest percentage of observed cyber attack traffic in the third quarter of 2013, and hackers managed to shut down websites more often in the first three quarters of the year than in all of 2012, according to a new report.

Akamai, the Cambridge company that delivers almost one-third of all Web traffic, observed attack traffic originating in 185 countries or regions during the third quarter, up 10 over the previous one, according to the company's "State of the Internet" report.

Thirty-five percent of attack traffic was carried out by computers in China, 20 percent was carried out in Indonesia, and 11 percent was carried out in the U.S., up from 6.9 percent the previous quarter, the report found. What's unknown is where the people who were controlling those computers are from, said David Belson, the report's editor.

"We believe these countries have large numbers of compromised computers that are being used to originate malicious traffic," Belson said.

One of the most common types of attacks is a distributed denial of service — or DDoS — in which thousands of computers controlled by one person overwhelm a website, making it inaccessible, said Charlie Miller, a security engineer at Twitter.

Akamai customers reported 281 such attacks in the third quarter, down from 318 in the previous one. However, the total number of DDoS attacks in the first three quarters of last year — 807 — was greater than the 768 reported in all of 2012.

"It could be the toolkits available to launch these attacks are becoming more easily accessible," Belson said. "Or it could be that more Akamai users are reporting them."

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Connector-fix price tag unknown

Massachusetts Health Connector officials, who admitted in October they've incurred "substantial costs" as a result of developing manual workarounds to the disastrous $69 million state Obamacare website, still aren't saying exactly how much that price tag has ballooned.

The Herald first reported Thursday that state officials knew as early as February — nine months before the launch — that parts of the site would probably be delayed.

In an Oct. 25 memo, Dr. Jay Himmelstein of UMass Medical School lamented to website developer CGI that the state has "already incurred substantial costs to develop and implement operational workarounds."

But state officials yesterday refused to say exactly how "substantial" those costs have become.

"The commonwealth is committed to holding CGI accountable for the cost of workarounds made necessary by their IT system failures, and is exploring ways to do so," said spokesman Jason Lefferts. "The workarounds and alternative pathways to coverage have allowed us to maintain our existing gains in coverage while offering subsidized health insurance to thousands of new people through the Affordable Care Act, despite CGI's shortcomings."

A CGI statement said: "CGI and its more than 300 team members working on the Connector site are dedicated to delivering continuous improvements in system performance and the user experience for the residents of Massachusetts." Flummoxed Bay Staters have encountered long waits and crashes while trying to sign up for federally mandated health insurance.

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Hub producer sues MJ’s estate, Anka

A Boston-based producer who hit his stride in the '80s with the electro-funk band the Jonzun Crew is suing the estate of Michael Jackson and Paul "Having My Baby" Anka for $10 million, claiming the King of Pop and the iconic Canadian crooner cut him out of the credits on their Grammy Award-nominated single, "This Is It."

Michael Jonzun alleges in court filings "This Is It" is nothing more than a remake of the love song "I Never Heard," which Jackson and Anka co-wrote in 1983 and Jonzun said he was asked to produce and tinker with in 1990. His suit states Jonzun "still has the tapes of the versions he created in his possession." He told a federal judge yesterday he has a contract to back up his one-third ownership in the hit.

But Los Angeles attorney Jeremiah Reynolds, one of the Jackson estate's Wilshire Boulevard defenders, told U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper, "We strongly believe these claims do not have merit. I just want that on the record."

"This Is It" was also the name of Jackson's swan-song documentary released in 2009 when his sudden death at age 50 derailed plans for a world tour. The film grossed nearly $262 million worldwide.

Jonzun told Casper he believes Massachusetts has jurisdiction over his case because "Mr. Anka performs here regularly," "the song is being sold in Massachusetts," and "Jackson has books being sold here. The list goes on and on."

The online database AllMusic credits Jonzun with discovering New Edition and with producing J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf's 1984 solo album "Lights Out."

Casper took under advisement arguments by Reynolds, Boston attorney Catherine Bednar on behalf of Anka, and Boston attorney Brian Devine, representing Jackson's doomed comeback tour promoter AEG Live, that she should throw Jonzun's suit out because he filed it in October 2012.

That's 18 days after the three-year window of opportunity he had to stake a claim against the two superstars under the federal Copyright Act, they said. Jonzun then missed the 120-day deadline to serve them with summonses, they added.

Jonzun, 59, of North Falmouth, weighing in by speaker phone, cautioned Casper, "The defendants are using a smokescreen of sorts to distract you." He said their protests that his civil action missed the deadline "are really just a wall for stopping me from moving forward because the case has merit."

Jonzun also sued the metal band Limp Bizkit for copyright infringement in 2003 and reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement,

He assured Casper yesterday he is actively searching for a lawyer, adding, "It's not easy getting someone to take on AEG Live, Paul Anka and the estate of Michael Jackson on a contingency fee basis."

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Intravenous nurses make points

Being an intravenous nurse involves a lot more than sticking patients with needles.

This specialty branch of nursing, with teams in most major hospitals, requires specialized training to install complex central catheters and to operate new technology making them safer to implant and less apt to cause infections.

There are 13 nurses on South Shore hospital's IV team, who work 24/7 offering support to 36 departments in the hospital.

Clinical coordinator and team leader Irma Sivieri has 10 years experience as a nurse, eight of them as an IV nurse.

"The IV team is a support team for other nurses in all aspects of vascular access," Sivieri said. "We're like the 'A' team. Nurses call us and we have to come in and help them immediately."

Many hospital patients probably remember a nurse calling in a member of an IV team to put in an intravenous fluid line, finding the right vein in the arm and inserting it on the first try. The regular nurse may not be able to find a vein because a patient is elderly, obese or has had a lot of other infusions.

But often their work is a lot more complicated. They are called in to assess patients who need IVs for long-term antibiotic treatment or for drugs that inflame veins. They put in peripherally inserted central catheters also known as PICC lines, a complicated procedure that involves running a catheter from the arm up and over to the superior vena cava, a vein just above the heart.

"I had a 95-year-old patient who was bleeding and her blood pressure was very low and they couldn't get an IV in her," Sivieri said. "We managed to get a central line in to stabilize her."

The South Shore IV team puts in about 600 PICC lines a year.

To help with the process, IV nurses learn to operate high-tech equipment such as the Site Rite Vision catheter system, which uses ultrasound to locate veins in the arm and to help thread the PICC line 40-50 centimeters from the arm vein to the superior vena cava.

To put in PICC lines, nurses must have the CRNI — Certified Registered Nurse Infusion — credential, which requires 1,600 hours of nurse IV experience and passing a written national exam.

"To be a good IV nurse, you have to have the skills and be passionate about doing it, said Laurie Hayes, a member of South Shore's IV team with 15 years of experience. "People often mistake IV nurses for phlebotomists."

Debra Ayers was a med/surg and ER nurse for seven years before joining South Shore's IV team two years ago.

"You have to command respect and be able to build rapport with patients in less than 10 minutes," said Ayers, who also teaches in the nursing program at Quincy College. "IV nursing is not generally taught in nursing school. You have to learn it on the job. And you have to have your anatomy down cold to know where every vein is."

Randall Barnes, a former IV nurse and president of the New England Chapter of the Infusion Nurses Society, says that IV teams have become critical to many hospitals because those who have them have lower rates of infections from IVs and infusions. Patient satisfaction is also better, which rewards the hospitals with higher Medicare payments.

The Bay State INS chapter is the largest in the United States with 189 members, 60 percent of whom are hospital IV nurses and 40 percent who do home care.

The South Shore Visiting Nurse Association has its own IV team, which serves patients at home in some 39 surrounding communities, said Mary Walsh, who founded the South Shore team and has been an IV nurse since 1984. She said IV nurses help discharged patients continue antibiotic treatments and even some chemotherapy at home.

"You're often working with a whole family, teaching them how to flush lines and keep everything antiseptic," said Walsh, who is now the chief nursing officer at Hebrew Senior Life's NewBridge on the Charles retirement community, where she oversees IV resources in its 48-bed rehabilitation center.

With new technology coming, Walsh adds that IV nurses will be able to place even more complicated catheters such as internal jugular lines.

After years as an IV nurse, Barnes now has a job at Bard Access Systems, developer of the Site Rite 
ultrasound catheter system, educating IV nurses on the new technology.

Barnes said the perception of the specialty has changed. IV nursing used to be more synonymous with infusion nursing, but Barnes said the new skills and technology are being used more for IVs than for chemotherapy infusion.

"It used to be that IV nurses were those nearing retirement who want to ease off a bit," he added. "But today it's a very busy job."

Sivieri said there are multiple calls for IV help at any one time, and that team members must be able to prioritize which ones are the most important.

"To be a good IV nurse, you need to be able to work independently and to work on a teamss," Sivieri said. "And you have to be a 
decision maker. You may be alone on an overnight shift and it's your call."

Patient safety is a big concern in placing advanced catheters, and South Shore's protocol is to have two nurses to install PICC lines.

"You must be 100 percent focused on the job," said Ayers. "It's challenging work for a nurse, but I like the variety of the job. Every day is different."

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Keyboard for iPad Air a best bet

Logitech Ultrathink Keyboard Cover for iPad Air ($99.95, AppleStore.com)

It was unfortunate iPad Air owners had to wait so long for keyboard accessories to hit the shelves.

They're not cheap, but Logitech's keyboard is tailor-made for the iPad Air, with a magnetic hinge that allows it to double as a cover.

The good: Though it's not a full-sized keyboard, fast typing is possible on this device once you get the hang of it. The keys feel substantial.

The bad: It may be the thinnest offering around, but that doesn't mean it lives up to its "ultrathin" promise.

This keyboard will nearly double the thickness of your iPad.

You also have to remember to switch the keyboard on and off manually because auto-pairing is not an option here.

The bottom line: If you're looking for a keyboard case that also protects the back of your iPad, try the ZAGGkeys Folio instead.

Otherwise, this is your best bet for an iPad Air keyboard.

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Smoking out the rough idle and stalling of Expedition

I have a 2001 Ford Expedition with the 5.4-liter V8 and 103,000 miles. At 98,000 miles it developed a rough idle and began stalling at stop signs.

My local mechanic noticed low fuel pressure and replaced the fuel filter and fuel pump. It ran good but then the "Check engine" light came on and the rough idle and stalling returned. The mechanic could not find anything wrong but a scan found codes P0171 and P0174. Another mechanic came up with the same codes and checked for vacuum leaks but could not find any. I have continued to drive the vehicle and the "Check engine" light is still on. Any suggestions?

My Alldata automotive database confirmed that the P0171 and P0174 codes indicate a lean fuel/air condition from both cylinder banks. Since technicians have checked for but not found the problem, I'd suggest a "smoke" test to help identify any vacuum leaks. This simple test involves introducing a non-toxic smoke into the crankcase under low pressure and then watching for any smoke escaping from the engine, induction system or vacuum lines.

Also, a ruptured diaphragm in the fuel pressure regulator, located on the fuel rail downstream of the fuel injectors, could cause low fuel pressure as well as fuel leakage directly into the intake manifold. If there's
liquid fuel in the vacuum line at the regulator, the diaphragm is ruptured. Rough idle and stalling at stops are often symptoms of a failed fuel pressure regulator.

I own a 2008 2.4-liter four-cylinder Toyota Camry with 98,000 miles that I service every 5,000 miles. For the past 15,000, miles I have had to add 2 to 2 1⁄2 quarts of engine oil between changes. The service writer at the Toyota dealership tells me that 1 to 1  1⁄2 quarts every 5,000 miles is normal for these aluminum engines. I have not noticed a decrease in engine power or any smoke from the tailpipe. I bought this car new expecting to get 200,000 miles out of it. I think this is a lot of oil for a car to burn.

One quart per 2,000 miles is completely within Toyota's "normal" oil consumption guidelines of one quart per 1,200 miles. Your concern is due to the change in oil consumption. Has oil use continued to increase? Or is it stable at this rate? Unless or until the consumption rate increases to excess, I would not be particularly concerned.

Unless oil use is being caused by a clogged PCV system or "sticky" piston rings, there's no easy "fix." You could try de-carbonizing the rings/grooves to free any sticking rings that could increase the amount of oil reaching the combustion chambers. Remove the spark plugs after shutting down the hot engine and pour an ounce or so of SeaFoam directly into each cylinder. After an hour or overnight, temporarily disable the ignition and fuel injection and crank the engine to expel any liquid in the cylinders. Reinstall the plugs, re-enable the ignition and injection, then start and drive the vehicle for at least 20 minutes.

I use "high-mileage" oil and change it every 3,000 miles on my two high-mileage cars. What kind of oil should I use when topping up the oil between changes during this very cold weather? Would 0W-20 full synthetic be the best bet? What is your opinion on using 0W-20 full synthetic for the regular oil changes during the cold months?

When adding oil between oil changes, use the same brand/viscosity already in the crankcase. Adding a different oil isn't harmful but the additive package and viscosity are likely not the same. I don't think 0W-20 would be a good choice in high-mileage vehicles unless the carmaker suggests it in the service recommendations. For most modern engines a full synthetic 5W-30 would be a good choice in cold temperatures.

Paul Brand, author of "How to Repair Your Car," is an automotive troubleshooter, driving instructor and former race-car driver. Readers may write to him at: Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn., 55488 or via email at paulbrand@startribune.com. Please explain the problem in detail and include a daytime phone number.

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Perks entice top engineers

As Boston's tech scene explodes and successful companies continue to grow at a breakneck pace, firms are stepping up to make sure top engineers end up at their desks and not at the business next door.

"If you want access to the best talent, you have to compete," said Andy Palmer, CEO and co-founder of Data-Tamer. Data-Tamer offers $5,000 referral bonuses, 16 weeks of parental leave, and lunch daily, part of an effort to sell the Cambridge company as an attractive place to work.

"These are the kinds of things that people sort of expect," Palmer said. "The best people have options, always have options."

"Everyone is trying to pitch the angle that makes them sexier than the guy next door," said Steve Conine, co-founder, chairman and CTO of e-commerce company Wayfair. "It's an employee's market."

Eliot Knudsen, a field engineer at Data-Tamer, said he is routinely approached about possible job opportunities. "I'm sent messages by recruiters maybe every couple days, several times a week," Knudsen said.

Knudsen said many of the messages are from recruiting companies, but some are internal recruiters at major companies, who reach out directly to gauge interest in a job.

Companies that are on the cusp of rapid growth are making sure they have the talent they need for the next step.

"People we're trying to hire are all actively recruited by other people," said John Nagro, director of engineering for HubSpot.

HubSpot gives $10,000 referral bonuses for successful hires, and offered a $30,000 referral bonus — paid twice — for hired candidates last summer. As companies such as Wayfair, HubSpot and newly public Care.com grow in market share and value, they are hiring engineers to keep pace.

"It's always competitive to hire engineers in Boston. That will only continue to be a challenge," said Sarah Hodges, vice president of marketing for Smarterer, which helps companies make smarter hires, and co-founder of Intelligent.ly, a professional development firm for start-ups.

Still, it is not all about the money.

"Money's not enough to attract great talent," Hodges said. "It's more important than ever to think about cultivating talent from within and building a really great culture."

Knudsen said he chose 
Data-Tamer not for the benefits or daily lunch, but because he saw an opportunity to grow as an engineer.

"The best people have the opportunity to work for companies that are not only interesting to work for and have competitive compensation, but are companies that have an inspiring mission," Palmer said.

Nagro cites the culture and opportunity to ship code daily as some reasons why engineers choose HubSpot.

"It's a very competitive market," Nagro said.

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