"tao" suddenly died

[Gary Kline]

On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 07:23:30AM +0000, Matthew Seaman wrote:
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> On 10/03/2010 03:34:52, Gary Kline wrote:
> > 	Well, long-story-short, the most unepect thing happened: a
> > 	power surge.  I did not realize that my printer was also off
> > 	until hours later.  A friend helped me trace the problem and
> > 	reset my surgge-protector.  ---It is worth noting that BEFORE
> > 	I got my battery [UPS], when things were dead or suddenly
> > 	went dead, i  knew right away to check the surge-protector.
> 
> Uh -- if you have a UPS, why are you using a surge protector as well?
> The function of a UPS is to condition your power supply.  It puts
> out clean 110/220V 50/60Hz power (depending on where you live)
> irrespective of what it is getting from the mains.  That is, the UPS
> also does all the surge protection function itself. Not only that, it
> should cope with surges by absorbing them, rather than blowing a circuit
> breaker, so it carries on running after the surge is over.
> 
> Admittedly some UPS designs are better than others -- inline UPSes are
> the best, but tend to be more expensive. These work by converting the
> input to DC and then converting back to AC.  Cheaper UPSes monitor the
> characteristics of the incoming current and switch to battery power if
> it is out of specification, which is not really failsafe.
> 
> Also, didn't your UPS sound the alarm?  They are normally too loud to
> ignore easily.
> 

	(This is all new to me, first, and I do not have
	everything plugged into the UPS, second.  I don't have
	the unit fully configured [via X11] so want to keep the
	load as light as possible.  )

	The unit is an APC manufacture; should be closer to the
	top of the line -- that's just my guess.  What happened 
	yesterday morning was that my DNS and firewall, router
	and widescreen kept on working ... :-D  Now it's time for
	me to finish the task on upgrading and maintenance.

	Trying to decide whether to build another home-brew
	computer or buy one off the shelf.

	gary

> 	Cheers,
> 
> 	Matthew
> 
> - -- 
> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
>                                                   Flat 3
> PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
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-- 
 Gary Kline  kline at thought.org  http://www.thought.org  Public Service Unix