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Global Newsletter
March 2008

Electricity - Friend or Foe?

Most technology depends on a clean, uninterrupted supply of electricity.  Unfortunately, inconsistencies in your electrical supply or a sudden complete loss of power can cause major damage to computer systems and other sensitive equipment.  This month we investigate power problems and the devices that are essential for protecting your technology investment.

Electrical supply is subjected to ‘brownouts’, surges and even complete outages.  ‘Brownouts’ are momentary slumps in supply, to a level under 100 volts. They are normally caused by ‘heavy use’ devices (e.g. motors, compressors, air conditioners and laser printers) being turned on, creating a momentary drain on the power supply.  Brownouts can affect a computer even if the voltage dip cannot be ‘seen’ (e.g. the lights in the room dimming).  And if they don’t crash your PC, they can cause stresses that can shorten the life of its components.

Surges of power often follow brownouts as the power rebounds back to normal, and can have similar effects caused by too much voltage.  

Complete outages are most common in suburban areas where lines are hung on poles that are exposed to lightening.

Surge/power filters or protectors are designed to ‘fail’ and cut the offending power supply before it damages your equipment.  A direct lightning strike or similar condition will destroy any surge/power filter, but it will indicate that it has lost protection and may still have some protection in reserve until it can be replaced.  A surge/power filter is designed to ‘self-sacrifice’ itself, and is low cost compared to some other alternatives. 

An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) sits between your power outlet and your electronic device, providing backup power from its batteries when the mains supply fails.  This gives you time to safely save open files and initiate the computer’s shutdown process.    

Additionally, most UPS’ regulate the power that comes from the wall, eliminating sags, spikes, noise, and other electrical interference that can damage equipment and data or interrupt operations.    

If I have a UPS, do I need surge protection?  Yes - International standards don’t require UPS’ to have surge protection, so they don’t have a high level of protection as this would increase their cost and make them uncompetitive. They are designed to handle the end of a major surge, not the whole surge itself, so the UPS device itself also needs adequate protection from surges.  It’s much cheaper to replace your failed surge protector than your fried UPS.

How long can things run on a UPS during a blackout?  Well, there is no standard answer, as UPS solutions are available to support devices from anywhere from five minutes to two days.  There are also several types of UPS, namely Standby, Line-interactive, and On-line, which have different features (and associated costs).  Typically, you should plan on enough run time to allow you to save any open files and safely shutdown your system.

In many cases, power protection can be justified by looking at the consequences of not having it. Several hours of professional work can be lost with just one brownout, due to a computer crashing before the work can be saved to disk. The consequences can be even more devastating if the power interruption physically damages the saved, historical data on the computer’s disk.  This can cause a business to suffer expensive setbacks in terms of time and disruption, even if the data can be restored from a recent backup. 

Spam Anyone ?

Some Tips on Fighting Spam

I don't know that there is any easy way to get rid of spam. It is a pain, it is sometimes disgusting and sometimes ludicrous, and it is more prevalent than ever before. However, I have learned a few tricks that might do you some good as well.

Lesson 1 is if you don't want spam; don't give anyone your email address. Well as this is a most unworkable solution, I have modified it by having throw-away email addresses. I use only these on list serves. If I start getting too much junk mail, I just junk the address, simple as that. I only give my "real" email address to those I trust and love. I have my own domain which gives me a lot of control over how I get my email.

Lesson 2 is only post your throwaway address on the Internet. If a search engine can find your email address, so can the spammers. Consider the Internet a huge farm that spammers continuously harvest.

Lesson 3 is to have more than one email address. I have a few that I use, one for social networks, another for buying things, and another for lists.

Lesson 4 is masking your email address. When posting online write out 'AT' instead of '@' This will not work on forms but works great when leaving your address in a comment or chat. The harvesters have a lot more trouble converting 'AT' to '@'. You can also, spell out the word 'DOT' instead of using the period. So as an example that would be 'graham AT avonside DOT co DOT nz'.

We recommend a product called iHateSpam for getting rid of spam in your inbox. Once you install it, your incoming email is automatically analyzed against iHateSpam's spam indicators to determine if a message is spam. Suspicious emails are then quarantined for your review. Since spam changes its attributes over time, filters have to keep up with all these changes. That's why iHateSpam automatically checks for updates to its spam filters when you start your email program -- and if there are any available, downloads them automatically.

Contact Computer Troubleshooters ~ Avonside for more information on iHateSpam

Virus vs. Spyware

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