Electricity is one of those things that we take for granted. We plug into a socket and expect power to flow. But sometimes circumstances beyond our control choke off that supply of power.

While you can't predict when the power will go out, you can protect yourself with an uninterruptible power supply (UPS)

What is a UPS?

A UPS is a backup power supply for your desktop computer or laptop computer, or any other peripherals that you might have. A UPS doesn't just protect your equipment against power loss. It can also ensure that your equipment will keep running if there are spikes or surges in power, or if your voltage drops below the level it should be at. In a sense, a UPS is a combination of a power supply and a surge protector. It lets you save your work, but also protects delicate electronics from the fickle nature of electricity.

For most home and small business users, though, a standby UPS is probably enough.

What to look for

What should you look for when buying a UPS? Here are a few factors to consider.

Finally, look at the small print – specifically the warranty and how often you'll need to replace the battery. If you're in an area where you know that you'll get a lot of use out of the UPS, then a good warranty is a must. As for battery replacement, one rule of thumb is three to five years. Again, that depends on how much you're using the UPS.

Conclusion

An uninterruptible power supply is a lot like an insurance policy.
In many cases, you won't need it. But when you do, you'll be glad it's there.

As many Tech Tip readers already know, the laptop computer is the preferred computer platform used by people today.  However, many people fret that giving up their desktop computer may mean giving up some of the great features that they had with it.  What most people don’t know is that they can get many of the same features (and then some) with a laptop.  While laptops do have limited expandability, if you choose your laptop wisely in the first place, you can come away with a computer that not only suits your needs, but will be a valuable addition to your computing family. Below is a brief run down of some cool extras that are becoming more and more available.

DVD Burner – Actually, most laptops already include this as a standard optical drive. But if you do get a laptop with it, look forsuch extra features built into the DVD burner such as the ability to burn a LightScribe or a Double propecia overnight Layer disc.

Integrated Webcam – YouTube anyone? With an integrated web camera built into yourlaptop (usually at the top of the screen,) you can make your own videos – and it’s useful for video conferencing with programs such as Skype too!

Card Reader – Also a component usually included these days – if you own a particular digital camera, look for one that supports your camera's flash memory format.

Solid State Drive (SSD) – A very cool, but very expensive, option being offered on more and more laptops.  Leave the spinning drive behind for a bank of flash memory chips.

TV card – The name says it all. Get TV right on your laptop.  The newest TV cards are usually hybrid cards that can pick up HDTV, Analog TV and also work as a video capture device.

Extra Hard Drives – Some laptops offer a second hard drive as a dumping ground for data or as a scratch disc.  This is a very useful place to dump pictures and music. If a second internal drive is not offered, an external hard drive may be for you.

Fingerprint scanner – Goodbye passwords and hello biometrics!  Used to be pretty much only seen on business-class laptops, but has been infiltrating the consumer laptop market slowly but surely.

Blu-ray – A very cool, but also expensive feature to get. A reader is often abbreviated as a BD-ROM, a writer as a BD-R and a writer/rewriter as BD-RE. If you do opt for a laptop with Blu-ray drive – spin the propeller on that beanie cap you’re wearing and welcome to a very exclusive (for the time being) club.

Long-life batteries/second batteries – There’s nothing quite as frustrating as having your batteries run out.  It is worthwhile to see if a long life battery is available for the model laptop you’re interested in. If not, consider buying a second battery.

Ultra-High screen resolutions – Particularly useful when your laptop includes a Blu-ray drive.

Cell Phone Modem – Cell phone modems or similar devices will (for a price, plus a service plan) allow you to be truly free, surfing the web where you want, when you want. Some high-end notebooks have this option built in.

Docks and port replicators – Basically, these can give you more ports (USB, FireWire, video, etc.,) that you may want.

Wireless (Wi-Fi) Printer – With many people hooking up wireless in their home, getting a printer with Wi-Fi already built in just makes sense.

Office Suites – Contrary to popular belief, most laptops DO NOT include office suites.  If you’re looking for a laptop with Microsoft Word already installed, you may be looking long and hard.  Some will have trial versions of the software, but you’ll need to purchase it after the trial period.  Home/Student editions of the software are usually very well priced and for many people worth buying as an extra. Pre-installed “Bundlewear” – This is actually a feature that people usually DON’T want on their laptop.  “Crapware” is any software that is preloaded into a laptop that is not normally part of the operating system.  While many laptop manufacturers usually do include a utility to uninstall crapware one at a time, for many it would be better if this “extra feature” is not loaded at all. Some manufacturers have gotten wise and now offer (for a nominal fee) to leave the crapware OFF your system in the first place.

Warranties and extended technical support – Some laptops (like the Lenovo ThinkPad series) already come with a monster warranty up-front. For everyone else, there are extended warranties.  Be sure to read the fine print, and find out of it covers accidental damage (like dropping the laptop).  An extended service plan will give you longer technical support if needed.  But, be forewarned, these warranties/extended service plans do add up quickly.

Of Course There’s More – We are sure there may be some features that we missed, and others that we may not have gone into deeply enough. However, this list, while not exhaustive, gives you a good starting point on the many cool features and extras to look for in your laptop purchase.  Feel free to add others in the Comments section of the Tech Tips Blog!

In 2005, here at Tech Tips we published an article “5 Things To Consider When Buying A Laptop Computer” We have decided to blow the dust off the article, update, and present to you a ‘made for today’ version:

4 Things to Consider When Buying A Laptop

With laptops now well established, and having a commanding share of the computer parts market, it is only fair to consider a few points when purchasing your new laptop computer.  When we are talking “laptops”, (or as some prefer to call them, notebooks), buyers today have a virtual cornucopia of extras and features to choose from. 

1) Primary Functionality

A favorite mantra of mine to any who are considering which laptop to purchase (really, this would apply to desktops computers as well) is asking yourself: What are you planning to use the computer for?  The answer to this question in many ways dictates the direction to focus your computer buying attention.  Are you planning on gaming or just tooling around the Internet? Is it for the kids' homework, or is it something that needs a bit more power to do some video editing?  A computer bought for the kids' homework may only need a low end (basic) processor, while something for gaming would call for a far more powerful processor.  For many people, it is a delicate balance of performance and pocketbook. 

2) Who Made What?

Most of the laptops sold today are actually made by a handful of Taiwanese companies.  The top five companies (Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Inventec, and Asus) actually manufacturer over 85% of all laptops sold worldwide.  All the top tier computer “manufacturers” (for example: Acer, Apple, Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, etc. etc) generally are not really “manufacturing” laptops per se, but rather contracting one or more of these companies to manufacturer their laptops for them.  Because such a small number of companies make the majority of laptops today, the modern laptop is essentially a commodity product, differentiated by its features and casing – the internal components are pretty much the same. The good news in all of this is that top tier manufacturers’ laptops pretty much have the same reliability – the bad news if when an “oops” occurs, (such as the recent issue with nVidia video chipsets it tends to affect more than just one computer manufacturer.

3) Faster, Higher, Stronger

With the delicate balance of performance and pocketbook to keep in mind, the three BIG things that will determine your laptop's performance out of the gate will be: processor, memory, and video. Other things will affect it as well, but these seem to be the “big three.”

• Processors

Mainstream high-end processors are generally considered to be the Intel Core 2 Duo with the AMD Turion 64 X2 coming up behind it. The mainstream middle-end processors would be the AMD Athlon 64 X2 and the Intel Pentium Dual Core. If at all possible, and in that order, these four proceeding processors would be the ones to look for.  That being said, the mainstream bargain (the nice way of saying “low-end”) processors would be the Intel Celeron Dual Core, Intel Celeron M, and AMD Sempron. Both AMD and Intel use model numbers for their processors (to distinguish as the core use, processor megaHertz, bus speed, and cache) and these can be confusing.  I’d recommend using a table (such as many that are found on Wikipedia.org) to be able to differentiate, say, a T5550 from a T7200.

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• Memory

Computer memory is pretty simple – the more you have the better it goes. One Gigabyte of RAM is usually considered the starting point that you’d want to look at, 2GB is even better (except on bargain units, where 512 megabytes would be ok).

• Video

On video memory, the way the market currently stands, there are two distinct options:  using a “discrete” (separate) video chipset with dedicated memory, or using an “integrated” video chipset that shares the computer main memory.  ATI and nVidia offer discrete chipsets of various flavors and amounts of dedicated memory, while Intel, ATI and nVidia all offer integrated solutions. Generally speaking, discrete video chips perform much better in gaming (in fact, gaming is not really recommended when using integrated chipsets), video editing, etc.  If you plan to use your laptop for
e-mail, writing and surfing the web, then getting a laptop with a discrete chipset would be a waste of money.

4) It’s Small and Cheap … It Must Be Good??

One of the big trends currently is small, very, basic cheap laptops commonly called “Netbooks”.  These are ultraportable laptops with very basic processors (read that as “slow”), low memory and hard drive capacity, and may include an operating system you’re not familiar with (read that as “Linux”). These laptops are great for travel and as a second laptop or for the kids – but for any kind of serious computing, they are not really recommended.

Manufacturers have also been racing to get thin and light units to the marketplace such as the Apple MacBook Air and the Lenovo X300 laptops as well as using material other than plastic for the outer casing (such as carbon-fiber and magnesium alloy). Large screened desktop replacement and entertainment laptops are also popular models as well and usually feature extras such as a TV card, Blu-ray player and remote control (sometime more than one!) Tablet and Convertible Laptops (“normal” laptops whose screens flip around to become a tablet) also have their legion of followers as do the rugged industrial strength laptops such as Panasonic’s Toughbook series.

Fait Accompli – La Fin!

Though by no means exhaustive, and some things painted in broad strokes, it is our hope that this Tech Tip will help you to navigate the rivers of uncertainty in the laptop jungle and help you reel in the perfect laptop!