OT - UPS - any experts out there ?

[Andrew Gabriel]

A burst packet of D-cells also works well with lightbulbs. The powdered glass was running out through the box corners before we even opened it.

[Dave Liquorice]

NUT is what I use but that is because the server to which the UPS is connected is linux based. AFAIK there is only a NUT client for doze and that hasn't really been updated for Vista let alone W7.

[Dave Liquorice]

Keep reporting a "fault" ever time you geta glitch. Try and get your affected neighbours to do the same.

Hum, I'd say a machine that is being used rather than sat a login screen is the one that is a more risk from having it's power yanked.

For something like this quite probably. An insulator failed here and I think their method of tracking it down was to isolate sections of line and reapply the power, if it still tripped they hadn't isolated the fault... What did please me about that incident was that it was an insulator at the top of "our" pole that had failed and on one of the reapplication of powers we happened to be out side and heard the noise and saw the smoke. Rang 'em up on the faults number and told them and the message got to the engineers working on the problem in just a few minutes.

If you can't see the valley it's raining.

Nor us, if we get flooded there are going to be really serious problems below us. Still if people insist on living/building less than 20' above the normal water level of any water course they can expect to get flooded.

[Geo]

This was how a hard disk was packed - just above the cd drive box (no packing was removed from the box before taking the pic):-

[Bob Eager]

ish box with stuff in the bottom. None of those air filled bags to pad it out.

The hard disk was LOOSE in the box - not even the plastic pack, just in an antistatic bag.

[geoff]

1/ the box hasn't split 2/ they put a token piece of packing paper in 3/ there are no single items from the sealed pack of 100 wotzits lying loose in the bottom 4/ no loose shards of what once was a delicate item which required sensitive packing

and ...

I presume they sent the stuff to the correct address

[Huge]

Many years ago, we went on holiday to China. Someone else on our tour bought a dinner service which the hotel assured them they could ship. Except that whoever packed it just put the whole lot in a carboard box without any padding whatsoever. I don't think a single piece survived the journey.

[John Rumm]

Added to that, it looks like the drive is in one of those clear plastic boxes that Seagate developed that actually do a surprisingly good job of protecting the things.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Geo saying something like:

I not so fondly recall Northern Tools packaging of an air compressor - a single skin of cardboard box.

[Bob Martin]

A company in Hull sent me 3 sheets of 2m x 1m x 4mm polycarbonate wrapped together in a single sheet of bubble-wrap and delivered by DHL. Instead of the 3 sheets ordered (£80) I received 8 or 9 pieces.