The benefits of a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) are clear. We all need, after all, enough time to save that important report or close that game properly, brownouts or blackouts be damned. Straight from the Tom’s Hardware Forums comes some sound advice.

Courtesy Aspstation.net

• “Never plug any surge suppressor or power strip into the load side of a UPS. [They] can cause the UPS to drain its battery faster than expected, or cause the UPS to shut down or trip a circuit breaker.”
• “Never plug any device into a UPS’s battery-protected outlets that… draws a high amount of power when first turned on. This includes most printers, especially laser printers; the power they draw at start-up exceeds what the UPS can deliver.”
• “[M]ake sure the load doesn’t exceed the UPS’s real or apparent power ratings. Most UPS’s have some type of total load indication or at least an overload indicator light to let you know that the UPS is overloaded.”
• “Different models of UPS may have the same apparent power rating but a different real power rating… UPS designs are different and one can handle more real power than the other. A prime example is the APC Smart-UPS 750 vs. the Smart-UPS 750 XL. Both are rated 750 VA, but the XL model can handle 600W while the non-XL model can only handle 500W.”
• “Different models of UPS may have the same apparent power rating but vastly different run times. The power rating is determined by the size and design of the inverter, while the run time is determined mainly by the battery size. The APC Smart-UPS 750 and Smart-UPS 750XL are both rated at 750VA, but when powering a 300W load, the XL model can run it for over 45 minutes, while the non-XL model has only 10 minutes of run time.”
• “Your computer power supply rating is much greater than the amount of power your system actually draws. Many computers today have a 600W or higher power supply, but actual draw from the line is generally 300W or less, so you don’t need to spend the money on a 1500VA UPS. To find out the actual amount of power your computer is using, use an inexpensive watt meter like the Kill-A-Watt.”

At first glance, the Nokia N97 can do-it-all, literally featuring every cell phone functionality Nokia has come out with to date. But a particular feature will cause owners of this phone to be more careful with their stuff (and, not to mention, the phone itself).

You see, the N97 uses a proprietary port for both its USB cable and charger (which is weird, since Nokia agreed to implement standard USB for future phones). This means older Nokia chargers won’t work with the phone—unless the bundled adapter is used. At least this means the phone can also draw power through a computer’s USB port.

At least the adapter accepts the older, thicker charger-pin, and the much thinner one found in newer models. This should serve as warning for N97 owners to keep track of what comes with their phone, because if they lose the included charger and adapter, they’ll have no choice but to rely on the USB cable for charging, buy a new charger from Nokia (which comes at a price of course).

Unless of course, this new USB-based charging format represents Nokia’s plans for future models. You never know.

Over a week since it’s announcement at akihabaranews.com, the Samsung Mini S2 USB 2.0 external hard disk line comes in “Ocean Blue”, “Sweet Pink”, and “Snow White” variants. And yes, it’’s designed for the ladies.

Slightly bigger than its predecessor the S1, the Mini S2 takes advantage of the increasingly roomy 2.5″ hard disk platform, offering capacities of up to 500GB. Keeping with the feminine theme, the casing is designed to not look out of place in a handbag, as the pic below illustrates:

The Samsung Mini S2. Courtesy Samsung

No word yet on pricing, but the S2 should be available throughout only South Korea by the end of this month. I wonder if this product was inspired by this old external hard disk design concept?

The concept is easy to understand: design a system that can create power from radio frequency energies to charge batteries. The potential for this is huge, since RF devices are practically ubiquitous—at least for those who need to charge batteries on a regular basis. WiFi and cellphone antennas are just some of the examples of RF-creating items that the proposed charging system can utilize. The full news report below:

Nokia Prototype Generates Power from Ambient Radiation
Shane McGlaun

Future Nokia devices may charge batteries without needing an AC outlet

Markku Rouvala, a researcher from the Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, U.K., and a group of researchers are working towards a development that could lead to phones that are able to top off their batteries by harvesting power from ambient RF signals.

The type of radiation that the researchers are trying to harvest for the power comes from Wi-Fi transmitters, cell phones, TV antennas and other sources. Rouvala says that the prototype device that has been developed could harvest as much as 50 milliwatts of power. That amount of power would be sufficient to charge a phone that is switched off.

The current prototype is capable of harvesting only three to five milliwatts. Two passive circuits are required in the prototype device.

Rouvala said, “Even if you are only getting microwatts, you can still harvest energy, provided your circuit is not using more power than it’s receiving.”

Generating power in this method isn’t a new break through; the same method is used to generate power for wireless sensors and RFID tags. Technology Review reports that this year a researcher at the University of Washington developed a temperature and humidity sensor that was able to draw the power it needs to operate from a signal emitted by a 1-megawatt TV antenna 4.1km away, but the device needed only 60 microwatts.

Nokia’s plans are to generate much higher levels of power from ambient signals. To develop 50 milliwatts would need about 1000 strong signals and an antenna that can pick up such a wide range of frequencies would suffer from efficiency losses.

Researcher and physicist Steve Beeby works on vibrational energy. He said, “If they can get 50 milliwatts out of ambient RF, that would put me out of business.”

Nokia is mum on the details of its plan, but Rouvala says, “I would say it is possible to put this into a product within three to four years.”
The technology would not be used to power a phone alone; it would be combined with other energy-harvesting technology like solar cells. This sort of power generating technology would be especially welcome on Nokia handsets designed for emerging markets.

(Image courtesy Encyclopedia Britannica)

So someone wanted to replace his eMac keyboard with another keyboard, sans the Eject Key. And he thoughtfully asks “Is there a keyboard sequence, hot key, whatever that will open the drive”? Guess what the solution was!

So much just to emulate this?

Go to the root of your hard drive (double-click on it) and open System: Library: CoreServices: Menu Extras. Inside that window, double-click on the icon called Eject.menu. You may want to hold down the OPTION key and drag it to the desktop to make a copy there, but once you start the application, it will put an eject symbol in the right side of the white menu bar above the desktop. When you click on it, you just have to choose Open SuperDrive/DVD Drive/CD etc. or Close SuperDrive… It also gives you the choice of F12, but unless you reassign the EXPOSE action that F12 executes, you won’t be able to use that.

If the eject button disappears on restart or shutdown, just put the copy of the eject.menu file in the Applications folder and then open your System Preferences. In there, go to the USERS section, highlight your account and click on the LOGIN ITEMS tab. Click on the + symbol and then use the window that pops up to navigate to the Applications folder and choose Eject.menu and it will be added to the list of login/start up programs to automatically execute every time you reboot or start up.

Bla bla bla bla bla… these instructions are very similar to a Windows-only procedure somewhat infamous for complication: Changing Your Network IP Address.

While Wisegeek asserts that having any wrist rest for your mouse hand is better than nothing at all, it also points out that users of these accessories should continue maintaining proper keyboard and mouse use:

Proper typing technique stresses the importance of bending or cupping the hands in order for the fingers to strike the keys at a downward angle. If the user’s wrists are resting on a padded wrist rest while typing, the fingers must reach for the keys at a more stressful angle… The user’s wrists should not touch the wrist rest during active typing.

The same philosophy holds true for a mouse pad wrist rest… Flicking or pushing the mouse with the fingers or wrist alone is considered improper mousing form and can lead to inflammation of the upper back and neck muscles.

Courtesy of Belkin

Oops, looks like I’ve been perpetuating a bad habit. Though from personal experience, I can say that my chronic wrist pain disappeared once I started using a bigger mouse and a mouse pad with a built-in wrist rest. Perhaps the best way to determine a wrist rest’s usefulness for your productivity is actual experimentation. And that doesn’t have to be expensive. NewEgg, for instance, is selling this $8 mouse-pad-cum-wrist-rest (pictured above):

BELKIN WaveRest F8E262-BLK Gel Mouse Pad (Black)

Feel free to share the results of any experimentation, even if a bit informal.

Remember the Luxeed Dynamic Pixel LED Keyboard? Turns out that totally playful yet useful peripheral—apparently available in the US only through ThinkGeek—has a newer cousin back in the home Korea. The Luxeed U5 adds support for Mac and Linux, meaning the utility that allows you to control the color for each individual key now works for both OSes, instead of being Windows-only.

Technabob, who were apparently able to decipher the Korean on the product site, reported many other changes: reduction of the “ghosting” caused by the lighting LEDs, addition of a firmware update utility, and improved key responsiveness. That last promised change is good news, especially for gamers who can take full advantage of assigning different colors to individual keys (green for WSAD and red for toggle weapons, anyone?).

Luxeed is currently accepting U5 pre-orders on its (Korean) website, pricing the peripheral at only $77 (compare that to ThinkGeek’s price of $200 for the older version!)

(image screenshot of product page)

A great concept design by Ji Woong, the Zip-It Earphones is basically the bastard child of earphones and a zipper. A zipper is built into the cord, presumably from the audio jack up to a inch or so from the earphone buds themselves.

The volume controls are—fittingly enough—are integrated into the zip pull. The concept calls for twisting the pull to adjust the volume, and pressing a button to prevent accidental volume changes.

I’m all for the Zip-It going on the market, but I think the zipper shouldn’t go all the way up to the person’s ears. The zipper would rub on the wearer’s cheeks, and cause some significant discomfort.

If a company ever decides to turn this concept into reality, how much would you pay for it? Would it also make sense to make a headphone version?

(images courtesy of Ji Woong, source)

Instructables’ article on how to make a USB hub from an old SNES cartridge is not only geeky, it’s useful. That’s because if you can get the required items (the most important of is listed on Tradera, the so-called Swedish eBay), you can modify the instructions a bit to make a USB hub from practically any container. You’ll just have to decipher the Swedish on Tradera first if you want to get anywhere.

Perhaps more experimental types should start out with trying to turn cartridges from other consoles. Although games no longer run from relatively bulky containers, so it may be wise to modify these increasingly rare relics so quickly?

If and when you decide to pull this off, why not consider the LEGO USB flash drive?

(image and source: instructables.com)

Found the Asterico Hub through Boing Boing Gadgets, and it’s quite a looker:

Obviously, the Asterico serves as a USB hub, turning one port into four. The five-star shape makes it look really cool, but robs it of the practical compactness that characterizes your typical USB hub. But that’s ok: anyone interested in this want some style mixed in with their function.

The Asterico apparently remains a product concept—even months later. So it’s not too late for these suggestions for designer Joel Escalona, if he ever decides to take his creation to retail: One, bundle a cable to connect the hub to the computer, or integrate the cable right into the design. Bonus if the cable is retractable. Two, make it available in other colors aside from blue. Three, make sure to come out with a Firewire version. The angular shape of a Firewire port (compared to the relatively flat USB hole) could make for interesting design.

That’s all I have. Got any suggestions dear readers?