A little extra reliability...

Payday finally arrived! I’d been looking at a good UPS (uninterruptible power supply for the non-hacker/tech readers) and finally settled on the APC RS 500 (about $AU300). It was painless to install and even with my current-sucking bittybox (ie pong, the environmentally-unsound old beast it is) I’ve got 15mins post-powercut to get my shit together and shut down cleanly. Plus, the unit does surge protection and voltage regulation (no spikes/undercurrents damaging components)

Monitoring is easy, thanks to apcupsd and munin’s APC UPS network plugin (apc_nis) (remember that qbert is a Linux box and while I have PowerChute, I’ve not used it yet)

Why a UPS for the home? Well – not only am I managing my own stuff but I’ve got sites for my brother and my friends the Turners to consider. I’m not getting paid to manage them but it’s a matter of professional pride. Data integrity is important. Additionally it will hopefully lengthen the life of the attached gear, which will save money.

However, the wiring at the back of the boxes is well…..

…it’s a bit of a mess, really. I really should break out the cable ties. Hell, I don’t even know where half of them go.
On other fronts:

Life: Dad is out of hospital and is well, although he has acquired a minor obsession for movies covering the Boer War. If anyone knows whre to get “Zulu Dawn” on DVD, we’d like to know.

Good luck to Tina Wallmann at Indy, I’m in your cheer squad in spirit if not in person (I still chuckle at the night you, Ali, Veronica and I had at Adrenalin, even if I barely got through my shift the next day)

To the charming lass that bagged Emma Brown at a recent competition, take a good look at yourself. You brought two people down (yes, two – that’s why I said to take a good look at yourself) for what? So you could convince yourself you’re important for 30sec? Sad.

I’ve said my piece, so I bid adeiu for the evening… ?