Tips for Weathering Power Outages
As a central-California resident, I'm accustomed to a couple of flavors of weather--mild and not-as-intensely-mild-as-it-was-last-week. Yet this week we've been getting hammered with real, honest-to-god weather--hail, buckets of rain, high winds, thunder, lightning, and the occasional flurry of toads. And, because our power lines remain above ground--as the early decades of the 20th century intended--the power went phut and I spent much of the day in the dark.
Thu, January 21, 2010
Macworld — As a central-California resident, I'm accustomed to a couple of flavors of weather--mild and not-as-intensely-mild-as-it-was-last-week. Yet this week we've been getting hammered with real, honest-to-god weather--hail, buckets of rain, high winds, thunder, lightning, and the occasional flurry of toads. And, because our power lines remain above ground--as the early decades of the 20th century intended--the power went phut and I spent much of the day in the dark.
But I was prepared. And you can be too with these few tips for what to do before and during those dark hours.
Get the right UPS
First, you should have an uninterruptible power supply (or UPS). And it must be robust enough to handle the devices plugged into it. Fat lot of good it does you plugging a Mac Pro, laser printer, and 30-inch monitor into a 350VA UPS. With such a puny UPS you'll have just enough reserve power to utter "damn!" before the battery drains.
Different devices draw different amounts of power. An old Power Mac G5 sucks more power than a modern Mac Pro. An iMac pulls less power than a Mac Pro. And an Apple laptop of any stripe beats them all. Get a UPS that can handle your computer's power pull. You can have a 1500VA UPS for between $150 and $200.
Be smart about what you plug into that UPS
Clearly you need to jack your computer and its monitor (if one isn't built in) into the UPS's battery-powered plugs. You should give careful thought to any additional devices that you attach to one of these plugs. Remember, a UPS is providing life-support to your Mac and you want its charge to last as long as possible. A laser printer will suck the life out of the most robust UPS in next to no time, so that's out. You can also live without speakers, a second monitor, that external backup drive, and your lava lamp when on battery power.
If you have a laptop that you leave plugged in, feel free to jack it into an outlet that isn't fed by the battery. This outlet can still provide surge protection, but since your laptop has a battery of its own, you don't need the UPS lending assistance as well. (If you do later, you always have the option to plug the laptop into a battery-powered outlet.)
If you do have a laptop or iPhone or iPod touch and rely on the Internet to get things done (and yes, this can include checking the local power company's outage map to see when you might have your power restored), plug your broadband modem and wireless router into the UPS. Thanks to a set-up like this I was able to stay on the Internet with my laptop and iPhone for three hours after my power went kablooey.
