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region.
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Vol. 2, No. 49
12-12-02
Last week’s woefully late newsletter dealt with surge protectors and generated a lot of mail, as well as a gaffe on my part. The section dealing with the CyberPower strip contained information related to the warranty on the unit, not the attached equipment.
Like the Belkin unit the
CyberPower covers the fair market value of the attached equipment, not
replacement value. That’s OK as
long as you have homeowners insurance but could be problematic if you
don’t.
That’s not the real problem
though. There is a codicil in the
agreement that voids the warranty if the spike/surge/lightning strike lasts
longer than 1ms (millisecond) or 1/1000 of a second. That’s not much time and CyberPower is
the only company I mentioned that had that limitation. The entire entry in the warranty
agreement reads…
“Standard
CyberPower surge protectors are designed to eliminate disrupting
and damaging
effects of momentary (less than 1ms) voltage spikes or impulses from lightning
or other power transients. If it can be shown that a voltage spike lasting
longer than 1ms has occurred, the Occurrence will be deemed outside the rated
capabilities of the surge suppressor and the warranty is
void.”
I still suggest the
CyberPower surge protectors for most home users but if you’re an apartment
dweller without renters insurance you may want to spend a little more and get a
Tripp Lite or APC product.
Reader Chris Nance sent me
his personal power protection scheme, which involves a device from the local
power company:
“I enjoyed your
article on surge protection. You may want to mention that
Cinergy (and
possibly LG&E) offer whole-house surge protection installed at the electric
meter for $200-$300. I have the whole-house surge protector
from
Cinergy as well as local surge protection on each
computer.”
Another reader
offered:
“If you haven't
looked at www.panamax.com, take a look! My
company recovered a 42k investment in 1.5 months with their line (C.O.)
protection in Florida during storm season in 1996! No telling what it has saved
us since. Same gear installed at the Breckinridge Co. Jail (KY) about a year and
a half ago has saved us approx. 40k (7 lightening
strikes)!”
I’m not going to delve into
the coverage on PanaMax devices because they appear to be aimed more at
businesses and extreme geeks. They
offer digital phone system protection, rack mounted units and basically
everything you need if you have high-end telephone equipment and server
farms. If you happen to be
responsible for this kind of stuff at work you may win a few brownie points by
checking this website and suggesting the added
protection.
Another point I neglected to
mention last week is the low-tech answer to surge protection. If a storm is brewing or you’re going
away for a few days on vacation just unplug everything that connects your PC to
the outside world. Power, phone,
cable etc. A machine that is
isolated can’t be damaged by power fluctuations from any
source.
See you next week
J
Kevin Mefford,
Editor
Elves
Have Entered the Building
Folks, this may be the most
important information I will ever provide through this publication. I guess that got your
attention!
For weeks, nay, months, many
of the Team members have been waiting with bated breath for the latest release
of our favorite piece of seasonal software. This little application can provide
hours of thought provoking entertainment and often stimulate deep thoughts. To what free software am I
referring? It is none other than
Nstorm’s “Elf Bowling 3”. This
little jewel can and will provide hours of semi-wholesome fun and it can be
found at http://www.nstorm.com/. I must confess I prefer last year’s
version.
After you feel you have
wasted enough time with the elves you may want to do something productive. Why not clean up your hard drive? “WinCln .Net” is a free program that
will clean cookies and temp files for you.
The advantage that this app offers is you can selectively delete or keep
those files and cookies that you choose.
WinCln offers both a Standard mode and an Advanced mode. Standard mode: Users have to choose the
items. Choose the ones and confirm with the permanently erase selected button.
This will not affect the operation of MS Windows. Advanced mode: Select the
check boxes for removing history. Click the Clean selected button to apply.
Windows will protect the files that it is currently using. Thus, it is safe
without data loss. Get it here: http://www.simtel.net/pub/dl/60455.shtml.
Subscribers’
Bonus: This one will waste a little time, too:
http://doody36.home.attbi.com/liberty.htm. The page is a bit slow to
load.
Art
Maley
http://www.saveinternetradio.org
If you’re a user of Windows XP and miss having those icons on your desktop for My Computer and My Documents you’re just a click away from a flashback. Simply right click on the Start button and choose Properties. Click the circle next to Classic Start menu and click Apply and OK.
Sit back and
reminisce.
Q: I have my main computer in
my basement. It's not a walkout basement; the whole thing is below grade. I want
to share my DSL connection with another computer that's on the 2nd floor of my
house, two stories up. I'm wondering could I do this with a wireless setup, or
would I have to use wires. Any help would be
appreciated.
A: Hopefully you
have an external modem. If so I would try to place the wireless device somewhere
between the 2 computers’ location. Say the first floor. If not possible put the
wireless router as high as you can get it (assuming the DSL connection is in
basement) and try to give the signal as clear of a path as possible (avoiding
large appliances and electrical devices). A 3rd is to get a
directional antenna and point it towards the other computer but this can only be
used with certain wap/routers. My Linksys has one attached I bought from www.fab-corp.com. Last major suggestion: Use USB wireless
devices on your PCs. They get about a 30% better range and you can place them in
an ideal position.
Johnathan P.
Durbin
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)
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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
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