With the start of spring here in the mid-west so starts the thunderstorm season. Thunderstorms bring havoc to the power grind with black outs, brown outs and spikes.

Sudden blackouts and brown outs can cause data loss of any unsaved work if the computer goes off. And when the power comes back on, there may be power spikes that can cause serious damage to the components of your computer rendering it useless at worst, or intermittent glitches that cannot be explained.

Of course, lightening is a sure fire killer of any electrical devices that take a hit.

The answer: Use a backup power supply

A UPS (uninterpretable power supply) is cheap insurance compared to replacing a computer or trying to recover data. A UPS is a battery backup that keeps power to your computer during a power outage.

A UPS also serves as a surge protector, protecting your computer from surges or spikes in the electrical current.

I use an APC brand UPS. APC is the industry standard for UPS. APC makes a line of UPS for home and small office computers and are reasonably priced. I cannot stress enough the importance of having a UPS, even for home computers. Do wait until you lose data or have to replace computer parts like I had to.

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