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All posts for the month May, 2009

Most people who do anything serious with a home computer use a battery backup system or UPS (Uninteruptable Power Supply) to keep it running through power glitches, dropouts or brown-outs.

Simply, a UPS is a battery, battery charger, inverter and a switching system to transfer to batter power when needed.  Without a UPS, the briefest loss of power will crash your computer and you will loose whatever unsaved data you were working on.  In the worst case the computer can be permanently damaged this way.

Not many people know that, just like the battery in a car, a UPS battery has a finite lifetime.  After a few years they no longer hold their charge and therefore the UPS can no longer perform its function.

Here is a typical UPS that I use on one of my machines. ups-front

During a recent thunderstorm I saw the AC power flicker and the machine connected to that UPS died.  A quick check showed that the UPS was not working.

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I’ve been rather poor about posting to the blog lately.  No real excuse except I’ve been doing other stuff.

I’ve been slowly recovering after my chemotherapy and things are going fairly well.  I still am rather weak and tire out easily but gradually I’m getting back to normal. My hair is starting to grow back – I actually have a visible beard again.  I still don’t know what I’m going to do with my hair.  So many people have commented that they like me bald, so I may continue that look.  Depends on how much of a hassle it is to maintain.

I also had cataract surgery May 15 on my left eye and my vision is already significantly better.  I’ll have the right eye done on June 4 and after that I should have better eyesight than I have for many years.

With better vision I hope I will be posting more here.   Stay tuned.