I picked up a couple 500 VA UPSs at Fry's the other day for $29 that have a $20 rebate -- hence, $9 after the rebate.  Nothing fancy
about them at all, but they'll probably work fine for small systems.

-David Schwartz

"David A. Sinck" wrote:

> I was out shopping for a UPS for my new box (finally!) and did some
> quick comparisons that I thought I'd share with yall just to be nice.
> This isn't an exhaustive list of UPSes avail, just the operative ones
> in my decision making process.  :-)
>
> Costco: 725 VA/ 450 watts  3 battery outlets/3 surge only $169
>         500 VA/ 280 w 3/3 $69
>
> CompUSA: 900 VA/500w 3/3 $149
>
> Bestbuy: oops, didn't write it down since it was worse off than
> CompUSA.  :-)
>
> So given that I wanted a bit of oomph, I bought the device from
> CompUSA (please, no beatings).  It's got a serial port and comes
> *with* the appropriate cable.
>
> So, I was as happy as a clam: a UPS with cool features ("Hey, Idiot,
> too much load" and the standard 'wiring fault', 'battery on', "I'm
> going to beep more than a mis-paste in vi", etc).
>
> Then I saw the bundled software:
>
>                                  APC
>
> Yes, that's right, APC, the makers of finer name brand devices that
> are Linux compatible and have drivers for same.
>
> Now, I haven't checked the viability of signals and such (the battery
> is on it's initial charge cycle) but it *seems* promising.  YPMV.
> (power)
>
> That made it officially cooler than the $6 10/100 NIC card from
> BestBuy.
>
> Miscellaneous: when I was buying my original box lo these many years,
> AZ had the next-to-last rank in power quality...only Alaska was worse
> off (go figure).  In my time here, that's been pretty much validated.
> OTOH, I imagine we're #47 now, letting California jump to #50 from
> wherever.  :-)
>
> And in a plea to the monitored everywhere, where would be a good place
> to eyeball billions of monitors that lets you pick frequency and such
> ("show me 19" @ 16x12 or better or I walk").  Or nominations for 19"
> monitors that can do same?
>
> I'm severely tempted by http://www.iiyama.com/product2/A902MT.HTM in
> everything but the price.
>
> TIA,
>
> David