Peter Sinclair: Fried motherboard? Go and buy a zap-catcher

By PETER SINCLAIR

A major interruption to your power supply is one of those things that will never happen ... until it does.

One thing that the energy crisis in California, America's most wired state, has reminded the rest of us is the vulnerability of our computerised infrastructures to the equivalent of a blown fuse.

The internet age has become the dark ages for the cradle of the internet over these past weeks.

As the nights close in down under and black storms roll up from the pole again there may be a lesson here for us. A single stroke of wintry lightning on your local transformer could cost you the entire contents of your hard-drive.

I've been trapped in this nightmare scenario once - fried motherboard, CPU, video-card, modem - and I don't ever want to go there again. That's why these days I use an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). This is not normally a hardware-related column, but in this case I suggest you consider one yourself.

At the very least, you should consider a basic zap-catcher - a simple surge board that protects your power to the PC and monitor, though it will not protect against a direct strike. This will cost from around $60 up.

If you want to go up a level to about $150, you will get improved performance plus protection for your telephone line against random noise and various other forms of electronic rubbish.

Moving on up to about $180 will also give you power filters that intercept and trap radio interference, probably a necessity only for those readers who are into sound recording.

After that you are into "uninterruptible" territory. A number of imported models are available, but I called Murray Irwin of Auckland-based International Power Technologies, who manufactures a model for the New Zealand market.

He explained how the uninterruptible power supply works: as soon as your power goes down for whatever reason, the UPS switches to its built-in battery power. This keeps the computer alive long enough to launch a shutdown routine which automatically saves all data in your computer's memory.

Your data is secure - at a price. It will cost from around $300 for a no-frills model up to as much as $1200 for a "sine-wave" version, which prevents the possibility of data corruption as the device is saving the contents of your drive.

There are few businesses with mission-critical data which should rely on an open and unprotected power supply - or home users either, in my opinion.

For when another front is rolling north and the heavens fill with utter blackness and unutterable din, and you have a nasty feeling the lightning is zeroed in on a transformer near you, it's a good feeling to be able to look at the small, winking display of your UPS and defy the night to do its worst.

BOOKMARKS

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New enhancements and added functionality come to New Zealand's largest internet banking service: view detailed loan information online, make loan payments, apply for an increase or a loan repayment holiday. The limit on ANZ's "Pay Anyone" feature, which enables customers to transfer funds to any account at any bank in the country, has been increased to $10,000 for personal customers, $25,000 for companies.

Advisory: the better way to bank.

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Advisory: make up your own mind where this one falls on the scale of dodginess ...

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Advisory: "clicks and mortar" is now cemented into the local vocabulary.

MOST SEARCHING: Google Groups

Picking up where Deja.com left off, Google has released another significant update to the Google Groups Usenet search service - the ability to post messages and to reply to the posts of other users. Google Groups is the world's largest Usenet archive, and contains more than 650 million searchable Usenet messages. At the bottom of all Google Groups messages (one month old or less), you will now see: "Post a follow-up to this message." Click, and you can instantly reply to a message by logging in and entering your comments. The registration process is simple and just needs a valid e-mail address and password to protect your identity.

Advisory: one of the most undervalued resources of the net ...

* pete@ihug.co.nz

Links

International Power Technologies

ANZ Internet Bank

MyRichUncle

ClickCrete

Google Groups