Over the years, studies have shown that power issues (surges, drops, fluctuations and especially “brown outs”) represent one of the biggest threats to your computer and other electronic devices. Unfortunately, most computer users only have part of the story about how to supply power to their PC, and thus, are left vulnerable to untimely component failures.

The media has done a good job of educating the average computer user about the need for a surge suppressor/protector, a device that is typically incorporated into a power strip that protects your computer from large “spikes” in power caused by environmental factors (such as lightening strikes), as well as issues with your power company’s power generation and distribution grid. Unfortunately, what has not been well communicated is the fact that a DROP in power, such as a power outage or a “brown out”, can also wreak havoc on such devices. Even power fluctuations that are detectable only by dedicated circuitry (lights do not dim or brighten enough to notice) can be sufficient to cause damage.

Unfortunately, a surge suppressor only deals with large spikes of power, leaving your computer vulnerable to smaller fluctuations, as well as totally unprotected against power drops and brown outs.

Herein lies the power of the Uninterruptible Power Supply (also known as a UPS).

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Performing data backups is a lot like buying life insurance: You hope that you never have to use it, but if disaster strikes you are so much better off because you followed through on it.

While many people find reasons not to perform backups, data backups are the center piece of a computer defense strategy, no matter if the defense is set against viruses, trojan horse programs, hackers, malicious software (”malware), or hardware failures.

A virus or Trojan Horse program trashed your machine? Restore your system from a backup and you are back in business once again.

A hacker penetrates your computer defenses and goofs with your system in such a way that you do not know what they did or what they left behind? No problem! Pull out your backup and restore your system.

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If you are a user of one of the popular Windows operating systems, and especially if your computer came “pre-installed” with the operating system, then you are most likely running under an “administrator” account. An “administrator” account is a user account that has complete access to all parts of the operating system.

Modern day operating systems typically require you to identify yourself with a user name and password when you wish to use them. If you happen to run Windows XP (or an older version of Windows) you may not have to enter a user name and password on startup as these operating systems can be set up to “auto-login” for you. This is certainly convenient, but it creates a rather significant security risk.

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