Comments on David Alison's Blog: Finding and setting up a UPS for a Mac

You may have missed this part (it was a long post)...

2010-03-08T06:07:38.149-05:00

You may have missed this part (it was a long post): It also came with a little "Data Port" connector and cable so that it could talk to the Mac Pro. This is a non-standard USB cable with normal USB connector on the computer side and an RJ45 connector on the UPS side.

I'm running OS 10.5.4 on a Macbook, with the simil...

2008-07-21T11:32:21.690-04:00

I'm running OS 10.5.4 on a Macbook, with the similar Back-UPS XS 900VA.
The charge level is detected over the USB cable, but the shutdown options are all grayed out! Useless. This also happened when I tried a Tripp-Lite 1000LCD from Costco. I thought it was just Tripp-Lite lacking OS support, but now I'm thinking it's more than that.

Anyone have ideas? Similar experience?

Thank you so much for this post. I was having a he...

2008-07-09T12:12:15.469-04:00

Thank you so much for this post. I was having a heck of a time figuring out if Macs were able to naively recognize the RJ45-to-usb connection. APC was no help, aside for saying that PowerChute was incompatible with Leopard.

Cheers!

Actually, pulling the plug is a necessary but not ...

2008-06-11T06:47:34.009-04:00

Actually, pulling the plug is a necessary but not sufficient test.

When the power really fails, the one thing you won't do is pull the plug. This means that your system is still connected to the grid and to your neighbors.

This, in turn, means you can and will be subject to power turning on halfway, and other transients that don't occur when you just pull the plug.

Also, some UPS systems will (used to?) push their battery power out to the grid, powering your neighbors house, or trying to. Or your neighbor might have one of those systems and put out bad power or transients on the line. So a fuller test is required. But for that you have to wait for a real outage...

We have three UPSeseseses in our house. All of t...

2008-06-06T16:41:54.868-04:00

We have three UPSeseseses in our house. All of them APC. Back in the day I 'scavenged' unused UPSeseseses from work which served well until the batteries uh, died. By the way, those lead-acid batteries can do evil things, like swell and emit toxic fumes if they fail, so keep that in mind.

The current ones, however, are an APC Back-UPS XS 1200, and two Back-UPS 500's. The only computers which require UPS protection from a power-continuation standpoint, however, are the Mac Mini, my DirecTivo, and our FIOS router. Our Macbooks are, naturally, equipped with their own built-in UPSeseseses.

This has the odd effect that when the power goes out other than the alarm they sound I'm otherwise unaware that the power has gone out. The 1200 keeps the lone Windows computer that acts as my TV with a TV card up along with the Tivo/Sat-receiver, and of course since it's satellite I don't suffer cable outages during bad weather. Different outages with rain-fade occasionally, but that thunderstorm has to be pretty severe and located in a particular place, but the upshot is that when I lose power, I can still catch the last few minutes of whatever program I'm watching.

Anyway, I have had very good experiences with APC products. They are the guys that keep the power flowing with the big data centers as well.

I have the same model; one thing to watch out for,...

2008-06-06T15:38:37.459-04:00

I have the same model; one thing to watch out for, there are two different models. The one they sell in retail stores (also via Amazon) is about $80 cheaper and only handles undervoltage situations, where the normal VX line (I think that's the letter) they sell online handles both over and undervoltage.

in reality, undervoltage is generally more common and more dangerous to electronics (like say, during a lightning storm).

HI David, in a previous post you asked for a repla...

2008-06-06T14:05:45.336-04:00

HI David, in a previous post you asked for a replacement to onenote, have you checked Evernote? new version is great, windows/mac/cloud...

Great blog...

Thanks

Great write up. Using UPS's is like doing backups....

2008-06-06T12:12:58.930-04:00

Great write up. Using UPS's is like doing backups. Most people don't, everyone should - and when you need them, you really need them.

APC has been my preferred UPS vendor for years for both lower-end personal units and high-end rack-mounted ones. They just work.

@Anon: You may have missed this part (it was a lon...

2008-06-06T10:34:11.434-04:00

@Anon: You may have missed this part (it was a long post): It also came with a little "Data Port" connector and cable so that it could talk to the Mac Pro. This is a non-standard USB cable with normal USB connector on the computer side and an RJ45 connector on the UPS side.

Could you be more specific as to how OSX recognize...

2008-06-06T10:31:52.030-04:00

Could you be more specific as to how OSX recognizes it? It can't be thourgh the power line, right? I tried blowing up the picture to see the ports on the back, but it would help a lot if you were more specific about the setup. Thanx.