Thanks for this on the UPS aspect of creating a maximally happy computer.
How do I evaluate which UPS is best for my office? I'm in a 100-year old stucco tudor building with irregular everything--never had a disaster, but it's a distinct possibility the way this place is held together with baling twine and beer tabs--and really I think I only truly care about the citizens of this list, the old 1.8 GZ/2GB/80 iMac, and the 1.0 GHZ/1.5 GB Quickbook dual processor, 2002, and the non-citizen of the list, my new 3.06GHZ/4GB/ 500 iMac. The office has two non-Macs we made, and I'm willing to have them fend for themselves. And the PowerBook 1.25/1.5 GB/xxxx I will take care of with proper battery management, once I get its new hard drive in, correct? Thanks! Anne On Apr 27, 2009, at 10:54 AM, Bruce Johnson wrote: > > > On Apr 26, 2009, at 7:09 PM, Anne Keller-Smith wrote: > >> The reason to do this would be that if you back up the System every >> day, would you not be backing up whatever errors have crept into it, >> thereby rendering the backup problematic when a problem occurs? > > This is a separate issue entirely. Errors do not 'creep into a > system'. > > Computers are not organic things; when they fail, they fail in > knowable ways due to deliberate activities. They may fail in subtle, > difficult to identify ways, but in general when computer systems fail > they fail because: > > Buggy software has been installed. > Hardware is failing. > > With OS X the first is relatively simple to identify. If a problem is > not noted by a different user on the system, or cannot be reproduced > in Safe mode, then the issue is most likely buggy, third party > software or corrupted caches. Caches get corrupted when there's > problems writing or reading to/from disk (either from disk hardware > problems or abrupt shutdowns). Clearing these (starting in safe mode, > dumping browser caches, or running AppleJack to 'deep clean' things) > often fixes the problem. This partially solved a nagging slowdown > problem I had been having with my laptop, along with getting Flash > crap under control in my browser. > > Hardware problems will increasingly become the issue with computers > germane to this list...the very newest of them (the last G5 towers) > are now approaching 4 years old, the oldest (the B&W G3) are ten years > old. > > I'm tempting the LEM "endless idiotic UPS thread" curse here, but one > of the best investments you can ever make for your computer system is > a good, professional-grade uninterruptible power system, one that also > conditions the power (you'll spend $120-$400 for one of these) > Completely aside from the issue of protecting against power surges, > they provide clean, design-spec power to the system. > > Electricity is the fuel for a computer, clean fuel == fewer problems. > I've seen them work over 15 years as an IT professional. > > All this said, OSX is a remarkably stable and robust OS. > > I'm convinced that many of the problems people experience with OS X > are the result of excessive tinkering, insufficient testing of new > software (don't go installing three new pref panes and four new > drivers at once.), too many 'switch off the power to shut down instead > of shutting down properly' incidents and poor power leading to > hardware faults. > > I know this because my own systems rarely experience the issues we see > here, and mine are hardly pristine state of the art systems: an > upgraded G4 that lived through a flood (The boot drive has been with > me since my computer was a Beige G3 running 10.2), a frankebook, half > 867Mhz/half 1Ghz TiBook, with bits of my old Pismo installed, and an > old first-gen Intel iMac. > > The desktops both live off of APC UPS'es, (A laptop's battery and > power brick system comprise, in essence, both parts of a power > conditioning UPS) > > I maintain current backups via Time Machine and that's it. > > I do no other 'system maintenance' whatsoever: I don't run > DiskWarrior, Repair Permissions, Onyx, AppleJack, etc etc etc. As I > said, OS X is robust. Leave it the heck alone and it usually runs > pretty well all by itself. > > -- > Bruce Johnson > University of Arizona > College of Pharmacy > Information Technology Group > > Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
