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Vol. 2, No. 48
12-8-02
With the recent severe storms in the area and the looming Christmas holiday I thought we'd talk a little this week about surge protectors. After all, those cable modems and X-Boxes don't come cheap.
Surge protectors come in all
sizes and shapes, with various device options like phone line, Ethernet and
cable ports as well as replacement coverage ranging from $0 to $75,000 or
more. It's the replacement coverage
specifically that I want to look at this week.
I reviewed the repair and replacement policies on standard surge suppressors from the 4 leading manufacturers of power protection devices: APC, Tripp Lite, Belkin and CyberPower.
The CyberPower 850 was the
least expensive unit I looked over, retailing at a mere $19.99. This device has 8 total power outlets, 4
of which are spaced widely to accommodate transformer block plugs, 1 phone line
in and 2 out (unique to this unit), a 6’ power cord and 1500JU rating. It offers lifetime replacement coverage
for the unit itself and $75,000 coverage for properly attached equipment in case
of damage. It was also unique in
coming complete with plastic “filler” plugs in each of the power outlets to
prevent a curious toddler from sticking his fingers, tongue or some handy metal
implement into the socket to see what would happen.
Like all of the devices
listed here, the CyberPower warranty requires the proper grounding of power and
telephone lines, as well as examination of the unit and any damaged equipment at
their discretion. They may also
request subrogation under any existing homeowner insurance policies you may
have.
The Belkin SurgeMaster II,
at $44.99, was the most expensive.
Features include 8 outlets (2 spaced for transformer blocks), a 6’ cord
and telephone protection for a modem or fax machine. Lifetime warranty on the unit and
$50,000 coverage, plus a whopping surge rating of 1769JU. 4 of the 8 sockets come with the filler
plugs.
Belkin adds data recovery
under their warranty, although of course there’s no guarantee of success. They also specify fair market value of
the equipment instead of replacement value. With that you could find yourself
getting about $75 for a 4 year old PC.
That’s good to help defer your insurance deductible but that’s about
all.
The Tripp Lite Super7Tel
features 7 outlets on a straight strip with 2 offsets at 90 degrees for
blocks. Telephone line support is
at the end of the strip, making this an extremely small unit. $75,000 coverage, a 7’ power cord and a
whopping 2470JU rating. Retail
price is around $27.99.
Tripp Lite has some odd
codicils in the warranty, mainly that the warranty is void if the surge
protector is plugged into another surge strip or UPS. The UPS warranty is void if plugged into
a surge protector, etc.
The APC Per7T has 7
protected outlets (none for blocks), 1060JU rating and a 6’ power cord. It sells for $29.99. Warranty is
$50,000.
APC offers data recovery on
some units but not this one. You’d
need to move up to one of the professional models for
that.
What it boils down to is
that your homeowner’s policy is going to end up covering most of any major
damage. That said, the average home
user could go with the CyberPower surge protector and be more or less worry
free. Small business users should
go with a more expensive UPS (often called a battery back up) which offers both
surge protection and a few minutes of power in case of a blackout so open
documents can be saved without data loss.
Keep in mind that absolutely
nothing will protect you from a direct lightning strike. If you see bad storms coming disconnect
any external connections to your PC (power, phone line, cable etc.) and ride it
out. And of course the 3 most
important steps in IT management are back up, back up and back
up.
Kevin Mefford,
Editor,
Have It
Your Way
Changing the way Windows
looks and acts can be both fun and dangerous at the same time. Many of the tweaking programs work by
modifying the registry, thereby adding the element of danger for novice
users.
Well, your trusty reporter
is going to eliminate the danger with a neat desktop mod app called
“Tclock2”. Here are just a few
things it can do:
·
In Windows 98, make your
icon text background transparent.
·
Shrink your desktop icons
and put the text to the side rather than below your
icons.
·
Change the appearance of
your clock to show the date and time in a variety of
formats.
·
Turn on a screen saver,
event, or application with one to four clicks on the
clock.
·
Set an
alarm.
·
Change the look of your
taskbar and Start button.
·
Skin your Programs menu
sidebar.
There are many more mods
available and this puppy is FREE here:
http://www.deskmod.com/?show=appinfo&soft_id=273
Unless you work as a
Webmaster or designer, your boss probably frowns on you surfing the Internet on
company time. Well, darn it; there
are just certain things one needs to know, i.e. game scores, travel
availability, etc. “Ghostzilla” is
a web browser that integrates into nearly any application, even windows
explorer. It will hide images on
web pages until you hover over them.
It even converts web page colors to black and white for even more
stealth. Get it here: http://www.ghostzilla.com/
**One caveat, most IT
administrators will log websites visited, so don’t go anywhere that would
embarrass you or worse, get you disciplined. **
Subscribers’
Bonus: Enjoy this time waster: http://www2.gamesville.lycos.com/html_poke/poke_penguin.htm
Art
Maley
http://www.saveinternetradio.org
Forwarding multiple email
messages.
Here's a neat little
feature of Mac OS X's Mail program. If you select multiple email messages, and
hit the forward button, Mail will combine all the messages into one. I actually
use it as a handy feature to combine related email messages instead of having to
copy/paste. I just select the various messages I want to combine and Forward
them to myself. You can select multiple messages by using the Shift Key for
adjacent messages in your Inbox or the Command (Apple) key for messages that are
scattered in your Inbox. Just press the Shift or Command Key and click on the
messages you want to choose.
This week I would also like to recommend a
couple of neat applications for OSX.
1. Searchling
If you are like me
and Google search every 5 minutes, this is a must have program. It installs an
unobtrusive little "G" on the corner of your top menu bar. Clicking on it opens
a search bar for Google. You can find Searchling
at:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mthole/searchling/
The program is free but
donations are accepted.
2. Print Center Repair.
Print Center
Repair is designed to rectify situations where Print Center will not open,
printers cannot be added, and numerous other
errors.
http://www.fixamac.net/software/pcr/index.html
It fixes many printer
and print center issues with OSX, especially those on older printers. It is
Shareware and costs $10.
Hash
Q: My son has been using Insight cable for
our high-speed Internet service for several months now. It works great,
but I was wanting to see if we can cut his costs for the service by getting a
cable modem instead of renting the
one from the cable company for $15 a
month. I talked to my son about it,
but he doesn't know what the
specification are to buy one locally. If you
have any information about
the specs, and maybe who has them, it would
be greatly appreciated.
A: You can call Insight and inquire about
purchasing the cable modem you
are currently using. Be sure to ask
about "used" pricing. Another
alternative is to check out BestBuy and CompUSA stores. Any of the cable
modems they sell will be compliant with the InsightBB service, but they will
require calling Insight's tech support to get the modem configured to the
system.
If you have
tech support questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please
email them to bob@iglou.com.
Copyright 2002,
The 84 Online Team. All rights
reserved. Publication, rebroadcast
or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward
this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B)
no fee is charged.
Information
provided in this publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied.
Although the information provided is known to work on most systems, it
may not work on ALL systems. Make
use of any information supplied at your own risk.
The 84 Online
Team is a group of volunteers who provide support for the 84 Online radio
broadcast. Team members are not
directly affiliated with nor employed by Clear Channel Communications or
WHAS. Views and opinions voiced in
this publication do not necessarily reflect the views held by Clear Channel or
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