First, you need to make sure that your system is plugged into a UL listed surge suppressor. You can check the surge suppressor that you are using by looking on the bottom of the unit to see if the UL symbol is on it. It will usually be placed next to the model number of the unit. If yours does not display the UL symbol then you are really using what is commonly called a power strip. This will simply supply you with an extra amount of plugs instead of the one that you have it plugged into. This will not protect you from the spikes and surges that can occur on a daily basis. The surge suppressor will help to stop the spikes and surges of power from making it to your computer and ruining the electronic components inside. As always, if there is a storm in the area, it is always better to not only turn off your system, but to also unplug the unit from it's power source. If your system is not plugged into it's power source, then there is no chance that your system will be damaged by a storm.  

Another item that is commonly missed when we are trying to protect our systems is the phone cord that connects to the telephone line or the cable line that attaches to the cable system in your house. Not many people realize that the phone line has a small amount of electricity running through it to power the ringing on the phones. This is more that enough power to fry your modem in a storm. The main thing that comes into play here is that this is not an item that is covered by any of the warranties that I have seen on our systems. The computer manufacturers will only warrant normal failures of their product, and an electrical surge is not considered to be a failure of the hardware. You will probably be responsible for the failure of modems that are ruined by surges in your power. If you have to change your surge suppressor because it is not UL listed, then I would suggest that the suppressor that you buy have a jack that you can plug the phone line into. Most of the manufacturers of surge suppressors provide a guarantee that your computer hardware will not be damaged if you use their product. You can get a surge suppressor that has a plug for your modem for about forty dollars. If you only need to add protection for you modem then you can get one for about ten dollars. 

The next piece of hardware that most of us forget about is the cable line that attaches to your cable modem. I have a customer that is very good about protecting his systems. We set up his systems on a little home network with all of them plugged into a battery backup system. We have all of the computers plugged into the battery backup as well as a separate surge suppressor for the phone lines. One item that we did not think of when setting up the system was the addition of a cable modem. The power of the cable modem was not a problem. The APS that we chose had plenty of power available for all the systems plus some room for expansion in the future. We did not plan for the coaxial cable that attaches the cable modem to the RoadRunner cable system. There is no electricity running through the coaxial but most of the time it is running on the same poles as the electricity. The cable company, at the cable box or pole that it connects to the cable system, should ground the coaxial cable. Even though you do not have to pay for the cable modem if it is damaged, it is still a hassle to get it replaced if a surge comes through the coaxial cable. This is what happened to my customer. The surge did not totally kill the modem. It only prevented it from connecting to the Linksys port that my customer was using for his network. If the modem were connected directly to the computers, it would work fine. I had to take my modem to his house to convince the cable company that the modem was the problem. Because this was such a bizarre problem, and also the distance that the customer lived from the office, caused him to be down for about a week before the problem could be solved. APC makes a surge suppressor that will take care of the coaxial for about forty dollars. That would have been well worth the headache that I had to endure trying to solve a problem like this. I have not found a regular surge suppressor that will take care of all of the items but I am sure that it must exist. It is just a matter of time and money until I can find it.  

If you want to have a battery backup for your system, APC has a UPS selector to help you choose the right one for your system. It is located at http://www.apcc.com/sizing . You will be able to choose what options you would like for your UPS. You will need to answer a few very simple questions about what you want to be plugged into the battery backup. Everything does not have to be plugged into the backup. If you choose to have software that will turn your system off in the event of a power failure, then you really don't even need to plug the monitor into it. Be sure that if you choose the battery backup system, that you still buy quality surge suppressors for any items that will not be using the battery system. A good UPS will cost at least one hundred dollars. This is a small price to pay to protect your system. 

Now that you have your system protected from the outside in, let's look at some of the other ways that you need to protect yourself. Not a week goes by that I do not see a system in for repair that has virus protection installed that has not been updated in many months. I saw a computer that came in for service this past week that had McAfee installed. The problem was that it was only version 3. What you need to know is that the last update for this version was put out December 15, 1999. The reason that this is important is that there are about 3 new viruses that come out every day. By some quick calculations that comes to about 1000 viruses that version 3 is not protecting these systems against. This does not even count the many viruses that the older versions of antivirus software do not even recognize as a virus. The new viruses attack your system in new ways. The people that write viruses are continuously changing old viruses so as to attack the holes that are available in our systems. Microsoft and the rest of the software companies did not leave these holes open on purpose. They made mistakes when writing the programs and the hackers are finding these holes and using them to try to harm unsuspecting users that do not keep up with updates that are designed to close them. If you do not take the time to make sure that your system is updated with the latest virus dat files, then you will not have anyone to blame but yourself when your system is hurt.  

Microsoft has tried to make it easy for us to learn about updates that need to be installed to close these holes. With Windows 98 they have added the Windows Update within Internet Explorer. This is a shortcut that is installed on the top of your Start Menu as well as within the tools menu in Internet Explorer. You can also go to the site from the address bar by typing inhttp://www.windowsupdate.com http://www.windowsupdate.com/. One of the updates that are available is one that will run every time Windows is started. This component of Windows will check the Microsoft Update site for what is call a critical update. These are updates that deal with security flaws within your system software. There have been at least 20 such updates so far this year and that does not count the updates that have come from the Office Update site. These are more updates that you need to be aware of if you use Office 2000. You can get to this site by typing in http://www.officeupdate/ in the address line of Internet Explorer. There have been about ten security updates not including the service release that was last updated in May of 2000. This "Service Release" corrected over 600 flaws in the Office 2000 programs. If they can put out product that has this many flaws, then I would think that it would be in your best interest to keep up with the updates to keep it current. A lot of the flaws that the service release corrects are usability issues that customers have found problems with and Microsoft has corrected the problems. But there are also a lot of flaws within the program that allow back doors to your computer through these programs by way of new macro and worm viruses.  

There are so many things to keep up with if you work on a computer. You have to plan for the inevitable fluctuations that come from the utility company. You have to plan for the poor quality of the software that is being put on the market today. You have to plan for all the hackers with too much time on their hands. It comes down to the old commercial, you can pay me now or you can pay me later. It always costs less to take care of the problem with good planning than it does to fix the problem after your system has been brought down. Plan to take care of your system now so that it can take care of the things that you bought it to do. The time that you spend in planning and keeping your system up to date will hurt a lot less than the costs that you will incur having it fixed after the fact.