Cords? What? and UPSeseses


I hadn’t seriously considered it until last Thursday night. Sure, my phone crackled sometimes, and during those times I usually went through the somewhat embarrassing “Is that at my end?” “No, I think it’s me” “Yep, it’s definitely your end” back-and-forth. But my Sony IT-B5 had served me well for the last, oh… 13 years, and didn’t deserve to be replaced. It was built like a tank. No sharp edges meant nothing to break off. Good design. And besides, I’m sure if I threw it away if would find some way to climb its way out of the trash (on its own, of course).
That all changed when I tripped over the extension cord Thursday night. Unintentionally laying out, my left shoulder gracefully glid directly into my bedroom doorknob. God did that hurt.
That was it. No more! I already knew Cam had purchased a cordless phone recently and was happy with it. I trust Cam’s judgement on this one, since he (more specifically, Melissa) is on the phone way more than I am. In addition, it lights up when you’ve got a voicemail waiting, which I’ve always thought was the coolest thing. Plus there’s the whole thing about me needing that feature REALLY BADLY since I never pick up the phone. So, I made like Renée and THREW MONEY AT IT.
Unfortunately doing that meant a trip to Staples. Bad idea.
Okay, here’s the sitch. The power in Florida, in particular, the power in Florida in the summer, is ridiculously bad. Bad like I’ve never seen. Brownouts, and worse, full on multi-second power outages, are commonplace. So, put yourself back in Staples. Office equipment. Uninterruptible Power Supplies. 5 minute batteries. 18 minute batteries. 70 55 minute batteries, with the ability to protect your cable signal AND shutdown your Mac safely via USB? Now you’re talking. This thing is massive. I haven’t installed it yet, but I gotta say, I’m looking forward to NOT racing to unplug the computer and cable at 5 in the morning after being woken by thunder.
So that’s that. Okay, not quite. You didn’t think I could leave without a can of compressed air, did you? For the record it’s the first time I’ve ever purchased compressed air. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was paying by credit. At all. I swear.


Comments

7 responses to “Cords? What? and UPSeseses”

  1. In for a phone … out with half the store inventory. That is what they would call “impulse buying”. You made some sales/marketing/business people giggle with glee! 🙂
    You will have to let me know how the battery backup/protection works out. I have also been without one for far to long.

  2. I wouldn’t really say it was an *impulse* buy (oh, the puns are painful) — I’ve been looking at getting one for a long time. The biggest thing holding me back was the fact that it was never a complete solution: sure, I could protect my power. But if my cable modem is unprotected, and is attached to my computer, what exactly is the point?
    The APC Back-UPS ES USB 750VA w/TEL & COAX 120V (say that ten times fast) has it covered. Looking at this chart, though, I’m thinking I may have mistaken the battery backup runtime. I shall have to give it a closer look (read: check the load) when I get home.
    And I may have made some sales/marketing/business people giggle, but not right then — there was hardly anyone in the store! It was kinda spooky. Actually, while I was looking at the compressed air, someone mistook me for an employee because I was still wearing my badge from work. It worked out okay, because he was able to point me to toward the phone section. 🙂

  3. Okay, here’s how the box reads. I definitely think marketing got a little over-zealous with this one. 70 mins is that backup time with the minimum amount of load.
    On the front:
    On the top:
    So, from this chart, my ACTUAL runtime would be 25 mins. Not bad, but nowhere near the 70 mins I was thinking.

  4. Ooh, less still.. I have a second monitor that needs power too. In any event, it’s the power conditioning that I’m really concerned about. There’s so much lightning around here, I’m sure the current is dirty as can be, and that can’t be good for my comp.

  5. Crazy … they display two (2) different Apple computers … not what I would have suspected.

  6. I think that’s probably because they *can* list them, and it still means something. There’s no way they could list a particular PC, what with all the possible configurations..

  7. Jeff Avatar

    Put the second monitor on a regular surge protector then you don’t have to worry about the extra drain but can still recover.