[P1] Airport Extreme ?

[e.mkeene]

> Thanks, 'emkeene'  for the details on UPS protection.   Now, could you
> give us brand names on your favorite UPS?   I will have to spend $700
> this week myself -- although it wasn't my Mac that was hit, I'd like to
> get a good UPS to prevent this hassle from happening again...

Currently, I have APC UPS. APC and TrippLite are the 2 best brands I 
personally know about. Most of the members in my MUG use the APC. One 
member who admins a large network, set out to scientifically test 
various brands of UPS for economy of use, efficacy and how well they 
cleaned the power. His tests revealed the TrippLites had a slight 
margin over the APC from a total cost of use basis.

 From my own personal experience, one caveat I find the most essential 
is to be sure your unit is large enough for the load it will carry. Not 
knowing about this factor, the first unit I bought was the least 
expensive I could find because I thought the significant factor in 
price was the number of minutes it would run after power loss.

That turned out much later to be a  significant error. For the system I 
had when I bought the unit, it was adequately sized. But as I added 
peripherals to the system and to the UPS, the total wattage was maxed 
out and I didn't know it. AS a result,  each time a brownout occurred, 
instead of using stored power that would then be replaced when the 
power normalized, a small bit of the total available batteryn power was 
permanently used up by the overload during the brownout. It was not 
enough to trip the circuit or to cause a sazfety problem, just enough 
to prematurely kill the battery permanently bit by bit. Replacement 
batteries while available, are also very expensive.

The most important factor in deciding which unit you need, is to find 
out the actual  amount of wattage each piece of your system requires, 
add together all the wattages and then purchase an UPS a bit larger 
than that total. If you know you will be purchasing other elements for 
the system, plan for those items also. It is cheaper to buy larger than 
smaller. Also, many of the large computer superstores frequently have 
sales on UPS. If you have a decent surge protector, watch for sales on 
the UPS. I bought My big ones at MicroCenter and the smaller one for my 
husband's iMac at CompUSA. For my G4Quicksilver 1 GB DP and 23" HD 
monitor, I bought an 1100 Volt unit on sale for $149 which was a 50% 
discount. I leave the 3rd UPS socket empty and use the surge protected 
sockets for other peripherals since they do not draw from the battery. 
They are simply protected from surges.

The surge protector I got with RJ11 and RJ45 connectors for the 
internal modems and cable modems is a Curtis bought from SmallDog.com 
for $20. At the time I bought it, they didn't have any with coax 
cables. They now have one with RJ11 and coax cable connectors. While 
that still doesn't provide a single simple solution for a cable modem, 
it will finally give me complete coverage for all the elements of a 
cable modem setup. This protector is also $20 and is a SMBB8S branded 
unit.

I also keep an APC notebook surge protector in my laptop case so that I 
can connect phone lines and the ac adaptor to the surge protector when 
the laptop is visiting or traveling.

Years aga, I had a MUG friend who reported a bunch of weird electrical 
and component problems in a rather short period of time. Her printer & 
scanner had major component failures and her cpu kept having software 
problems requiring a clean install once or twice a week for several 
weeks. Since she was also a graphic design freelancer, this was a major 
problem and income loss. I also knew Turns out, she lived in an older 
apt bldg with inadequate wiring and was extremely lucky anything worked 
and had not caught fire. The whole apt had to be rewired, she finally 
got a decent surge protector, and ultimately an UPS. End of problems.

If you need help deciding how large your UPS should be, APC has a 
selector to help  you calculate your needs at their website. They also 
have several interesting papers explaining more about the electricity 
problems. You can go to this url and browse from there

http://www.apcc.com/solutions/home/

Some of the newer ones now have software that will automatically shut 
them down safely in a problem situation and other bells and whistles.

Mac Computer Show and Sale December 13th
Info at www.wap.org