I was a little shocked (pun not intended) to see this article on LifeHacker. Doesn’t everybody know about Uninterruptible Power Supplies already? Then reality asserted itself, as I remembered that to most people, computers are just magic boxes.
When I was running a desktop system, the UPS was a must-have item. Now that I’ve only got a laptop, it’s a lot less important (because of the laptop’s internal battery), but I still insist on having one to run my other peripherals. GoddessJ’s desktop has one too, and we had to put one on my mother-in-law’s system as well, just because she was experiencing small brown-outs that were unnoticeable to the naked eye, but that would glitch her computer.
If you use a desktop system, I highly recommend a UPS. Even if it’s just a small one, it will let your system shut down properly before the power runs out, which will save you lots of time and headaches in the long run.
I only got a UPS about 3 years ago after brownouts and other electrical problems in a building, but not too late for the damage probably to be done to my Mac mini, necessitating Apple to ask for a $380+ logicboard (motherboard) replacement, not counting labor, a repair that would cost much less with a PC, or for that matter, some PCs even cost less than the repair itself. (The Mac mini “logicboard” was actually the cheapest, a Mac Pro’s “logicboard” is well over a thousand to replace, on the high end.)
The “magic box” thinkers wouldn’t know that, and would just go out and buy a new one. Though to be completely frank, they don’t need that excuse — a lot of them will go out and buy a new computer just because the old one has gotten slow due to malware. (Of course, they don’t know that it was caused by malware.)
I’ve often wondered if Microsoft was slow in fixing the malware vulnerability of its OS because of the new computer sales (and thus sales of Windows) it engendered, but that’s just too evil, even for Microsoft. 😉
One of the rules I live by: never assume malice when something can be adequately explained by stupidity. Or in this case, lack of competence. 🙂
But it’s fun being Paranoid, HG, preferably schizophrenic too! The good thing about being schizophrenic is that you never get bored. 😉
Or lonely, no doubt. 🙂