UPS nomination

[David A. Sinck]

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