At 11:08 PM -0400 7/12/05, Sovereignty wrote:
>At 9:11 PM -0400 07-12-2005, Johann Beda wrote:
>> Mac OS X has rudimentary support for talking to
>> the UPS via USB, which shows up in the "Energy Saver" control pane in
>> System Preferences.
>
>I'm looking at the Energy Saver in 10.3.9 and not seeing anything that
>would apply to low voltage situations. Are you saying that plugging the
>computer into a UPS would create more options in the preference pane?
Yep, they appear by magic or something. Or you can install any
software that comes with the UPS or from someone else like power guardian.
Since I went to 10.4 I have not installed the APC software.
<http://www.powerguardian.com/>
>
>If there is a USB to UPS connection needed, I'm pretty sure I'm SOL
>with my particular iMac
The communication connection between the UPS and the computer
enables things like having the computer shut itself down before the battery
dies - it is not strictly needed. Generally when the power goes out, the
UPS starts beeping as it supplies the devices connected to it. If you are
sitting at the computer, you can shut down gracefully (saving work, etc).
If you are not at the computer, the UPS can tell the computer that it is
running out of juice, and it can shut itself down if it has the appropriate
software (I do not know if any Mac OS X software is smart enough to save
open documents, etc.). If the communication cable is not present,
eventually the battery runs out of power and everything connected is
without power.
Thus, for unattended operation, the UPC without a communication
cable can give great protection for short outages (and brownouts and things
like that), but for long blackouts it is not much good. I would still
recommend it to people for even that limited protection.
It also can keep your cordless phone working in a blackout, which
can be nice if you do not have easy access to an old-fashioned corded one.
--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://public.xdi.org/=j-beda> *
* Johann's MostlyMac Computer Consulting - <http://mmcc.beda.ca/> *
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