We lost power twice this morning, but some good did come of it...
First, it motivated me to get off my butt and bug Jeanie
One company even came by today to give us an estimate. Hopefully, one or two more will come by in the next day or two so we can make a decision and get the work done so we'll be ready when the next power outage occurs.
Second, it motivated me to rework the UPSs (yes, plural) in my office. Since I'm cheap, and only invest in UPSs that are free after rebate or extremely cheap after rebate, I have accumulated a bunch of 350VA units. I had three running in the office, but I didn't have everything I should have had plugged into a UPS, I didn't have the devices well distributed between the three, and one of the units apparently had "a challenge." I had a unit sitting around that I hadn't gotten around to setting up, so I unplugged everything in the office and re-architected the power setup. I now have one UPS devoted to the monitor, one UPS devoted to the PC, one UPS devoted to the Linux box, and one UPS which supports the cable signal amplifier, the cable modem, and the firewall/router/switch. To get four working units, I did have to operate on the "challenged" unit. This involved disassembling the entire unit, removing the circuit board, and re-seating the power switch which had apparently been incorrectly installed in the factory. I also installed UPS monitoring software on the PC, so it will now shut itself down should the next power outage approach the capacity of the UPS.
Since we have fairly frequent power "blips," with this new setup, I should have a much more stable environment - including my Internet connection which used to drop on every blip because I hadn't thought to plug the cable signal amplifier into the UPS.
The only down side to this stability is that now I won't have an excuse to take a break from work every time the power goes out, since between the battery in the notebook and the UPS protecting the cable Internet, I won't lose connectivity to work ;-)
Once we get the power transfer station installed I guess I will be able to work non-stop regardless of the flow of electrons from the power company or lack thereof - at least until the gasoline runs out...
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Posted by David at April 15, 2003 07:20 PM | Categorized under: A day in the life