There are also two must-have indicator lights. One shows whether the strip is turned on (it's all too easy to kick the switch into the off position). The other shows whether you're still protected against surges. Every time it absorbs a surge, your strip dies a little - eventually it offers no protection at all. A glowing indicator lamp tells you the suppressor can still do its job. If you have an older suppressor, check it out. Even then, it's not a bad idea to replace suppressors every couple of years.
Other useful features include outlets arranged facing outward, rather than in line, and spaced wide enough to accommodate the ubiquitous little black boxes that charge cell phones and other gadgets. Some strips also offer protected jacks and connectors for telephone and cable lines.
If you have lots of gadgets and don't want to worry about protecting each one, consider a whole-house surge suppressor. These devices cost $150 to $250 and must be installed by an electrician at your breaker box, which may double the cost of the unit itself. But once you have one, it will protect all the equipment in your house from outside surges. BGE Home, the utility company's eponymous consumer services spinoff, has one called SurgeGuard that it will install and lease for a monthly fee.
FOR THE RECORD - The address for the American Power Conversion Web site in Mike Himowitz's Plugged In column Thursday was incorrect. It should have been www.apc.com.
The Sun regrets the error.
Surge suppression is the first half of protecting your valuable equipment. For some devices, especially a PC, you may also want an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS. A UPS is a heavy, bulky box containing a rechargeable battery that sits between the wall outlet and your computer and other components. Most have outlets for several devices.
When the voltage drops precipitously, the battery power kicks in and keeps your PC and other devices running from 10 minutes to an hour, depending on how equipment you plug in and much you're willing to pay.
This protection is especially important for PCs, because a sudden power loss while the computer is writing data to the hard drive can seriously scramble the disk and even render it unusable - along with all your data, music, videos, financial records and so forth. A UPS also will give your equipment a smooth, untroubled ride with a minimum number of restarts in areas where there are frequent, short blackouts.
Most consumer and small business UPS units also provide surge suppression and power line filtering. They typically have a couple of outlets with battery backup and several more with surge suppression but no auxiliary power.
