What did you spend the morning doing? I spent it pulling cable.

[Drum Thumper]

Went to work at 10 am and helped everyone's grandmother get their email, just like I do every Thursday.

And add one more vote for anything APC.

[Oneslowz28]

I'm looking at some of the APC units now. Talked to my Uncle and we have budgeted $300-350 for them. (I need 6 total with phone jacks) Our electrician is coming out in the morning to inspect everything and make sure nothing else was damaged. After doing the math we may have enough $$ left from the Ins. claim to purchase a 32-36" LCD to replace the old tube unit. First priority is the surge protectors though.

[Cale_Hagan]

Apc is the way to go. i spent my morning sleeping in. just woke up!

[BuzzKillington]

Woke up at 1am on accident after 2 hours of sleep and couldn't fall back asleep so I pulled out my computer desk to get my rats nest organized a bit. That project started because I ran out of USB ports so I had to track down the cables I was too lazy to remove after tossing my printer 2 days ago. After that I played Black Ops for a bit... before I knew it, it was 11am so I took a 3 hour nap and just woke up at 2pm to get ready for a 10 hour shift at work. I'm kicking myself right now but still glad I didn't have your morning. haha

[dr.walrus]

Use a surge protector that comes with a warranty. Some of the APC units have a $25000 damage protection warranty. They have models with phone and cable ports too.

this.

and make sure the warranty is with a reputable company with a US presence!

[x88x]

/\What walrus & Airbozo said. Even the consumer-level APC units I use at home have warranties for, iirc, $10-15k. I think the larger the unit, the higher the insurance coverage. Granted I've only had a couple old APC units, two new Belkin units, and now two new APC units, but personally I wouldn't buy anything but APC unless cost was a severely limiting factor.

Oh, and I spent my morning messing with my computer (till ~4) and sleeping (till ~12)...then off to work.

[DynamoNED]

I spent this morning driving 1.5 hours to my college's library to check out materials I need for an integrated unit plan I have to do for my Master's degree. However, I arrived and was told the materials I need cannot be checked out of the library after being reassured multiple times before I left that I could, in fact, check them out. Yay bureaucracy and lack of communication between departments!

Despite this, Oneslowz28 gets the "Far Worse Morning than Mine" award; we had a flood in my hometown last year which forced us to replace all the new SmartBoard and teacher laptops, so I sympathize.

[Konrad]

I use a Hammond Isolation Transformer (rated 2000W max) for my main machine. I've equipped it with a pair of old GM thyrites I picked up at a hamfest auction which should arrest any monster surges. Your local electricians know where to buy panel-mounted lightning arrestors, pretty good for protecting at least one or two breakers. You might be able to improve your service ground by putting a rod immediately below your panel box, assuming you can tie it into your other grounds and still meet code. You might even be able to redirect a drainage pipe or sprinkler or something to ensure greater moisture content around your ground rods. You can install lightning conductors on your rooftop, actually not too costly.

Ham radio guys use all sorts of arrest devices, including MOVs, thyrites, "gaps", "flash braid", and expensive plasma-discharge components. They often build extra boxes just to serve as sacrificial electrical junctions. They often know more "practical" stuff about lightning protection than electricians in this regard, because electricians don't have $$$$$ (and their life's love) sunk into fragile equipment that's all plugged into a big powered metal antenna tower.

Beware that unsavoury scavengers are known to dig up valuable copper stakes to sell for scrap. Lightning rods do go missing from time to time (much to the delight of insurance companies) ... doesn't hurt to check.

A "power conditioner" is a good choice if it includes an isolation transformer, some of them involve some sort of "smart" logic which is cool but generally nonessential; surge and spike arrest ratings are more important than brownout and undervoltage stuff.

Surge protectors typically involve cheap MOVs which gradually degrade into uselessness over time, they can't hurt but they aren't as helpful as most people think; the MOV can blow out (and stop providing surge protection) while the status LED remains lit. MOV parts are inexpensive and can easily be fitted into outlets or PSUs, they're basically disposable "surge fuses". Gas-discharge systems can handle much greater voltages but require a higher voltage threshold and a few moments to trigger; awesome surge protectors might implement a mix of both approaches. Better surge protectors carry UL certs, announce their surge ratings, and isolate all of their outlets independently. Medical/Hospital power bars are the most costly and best quality available. Everything you plug into the computer should be protected, including phone, cable, and network lines, including the power cords for monitor, printer, and all other devices; avoid any surge protectors which can't accomodate it all because they won't do you any good anyhow. The reality is that you're not going to plug and unplug things on a daily basis, you want fire-and-forget. (Apparently, the vast majority of lightning strikes hit power lines and phone lines, even when subterranean. The little 8-ohm impedance-matching xformers and optoelectronic parts in your modems won't do nothin'.)

An inexpensive battery UPS provides decent protection: it'll probably melt (and open the circuit) before any of the equipment it services. You can also try tying a few knots into your power cords, protection is debatable (and likely minimal) but hey it's free.

I'm of the opinion that UPS devices should be "pure" battery-only UPS devices ... the switching kinds are inferior (but helluva lot cheaper). If you do choose a switching one then make sure the switchover time is less than 1 cycle at 60Hz, ie: < 16.66ms (<8.33ms preferred) to keep your stuff running and that they include a "ferro-resonant transformer" (trendy market fluff for "real solid metal transformer instead of cheap Shenzhen FET-semiconductor"). Proper UL certs indicate actual testing and guarantees, as usual. FCC stickers are typically meaningless on such equipment.

Nonmagnetic (optical) and offsite backups are your only real guarantee against lightning damage. Also, if lightning blast intensity is sufficient to arc around between your equipment then no realistic amount of protection will save your data anyhow.

I've considered modifying a chassis to accomodate some kind of combo PSU/UPS system; basically an isolation transformer, float-charge circuit, and bank of 12V lead acid batteries ... without the intermediate DC-to-AC inverter and AC-to-DC regulation stages which burn power and introduce harmonics. Still haven't gotten around to it, of course.

Oh ... I spent my morning debugging (and ultimately rewriting) about 8000 lines of somebody else's bad code. Yay.