apc

I like the Belkin company. I remember when Belkin was basically nothing but a cable company, and by that, I mean a company that makes electrical and optical cables. They made good cables, and still do.

But in recent years they have expanded into a wide variety of consumer products. I've always assumed Belkin's expansion was driven, at least in part, by the success of Monster Cable, which has made a lot of money selling expensive cables that (in my opinion, at least) are not always worth the price.

I imagine Belkin's engineering-oriented management deciding that selling … Read more

When I posted my review of Belkin's TuneTalk Stereo, a representative of APC commented on the story to suggest that I might want to use APC's Mobile Power Pack to extend the iPod's battery life when recording.

I started to reply to describe the gizmo I designed to power my iPod from a spare PowerBook battery-- a little clip that connects the battery terminals to an iPod dock cable. This is what I used to use to power up my old 4th-generation iPod while recording long conference sessions with the Belkin Voice Recorder for iPod.

But even as I was typing, I realized… Read more

Everyone knows to use a surge protector for their computer. But which one? How do you choose? Welcome to surge protector school.

As their name implies, surge protectors prevent voltage spikes from entering a computer (or whatever else is plugged into them). They are available in a variety of types and, to paraphrase the manual that came with a Dell server, usually provide a level of protection commensurate with the cost of the device. In other words, you get what you pay for.

A surge protector is not a power strip, although a low end model may look like a … Read more