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A while back we reviewed Sophisticated Circuits' "Kick-Off!" product for USB servers running Mac OS. I think we made it clear that the Kick-Off! was not for home use, it's really for use with a stand-alone server that is meant to not be touched.
So since then it's been spinning around in our brains (which is not always like circling the drain) that there must be something of comparable utility for the home user. While we haven't found any magical application that knows when your Mac is in trouble, and take whatever appropriate steps to keep everything working the way you want given whatever disasterous situation (well, we have, but he is me, and I'm significantly more expensive), we have found the APC Back-UPS Pro USB 500 Clear. While we realize that server administrators will also find useful the joy that is battery backup, we also understand that they'll want the advanced crash protective features included with the Kick-Off!. For crash protection, the home user needs a copy of Norton Systemworks; for battery backup, the home user needs the Back-UPS Pro USB 500 Clear. Keep in mind that this, unlike SystemWorks, is not for virtually everybody. The BUPU5C, or "Boo-Poo" as we affectionately like to call it around the office, is only for those with USB Macs that are running at least Mac OS 9.0.4. The cutesiness doesn't end with the pet names with this beauty, oh no. not only is it encased in translucent plastics that could only be called "Ice", but it comes with seven darling little hoozama-whatzits that plug into the face of the battery unit so that it might better match your Mac. The only complaint anyone could reasonably come up with is that it only includes the colors from Bondi through Graphite, leaving modern folks like me to try and match a little Blueberry plastic oval with my contemporary Indigo iMac. Big points for APC for pushing the cuteness envelope with hoozama-whatzits of joy, but they may as well eject if they aren't willing to include Indigo, Sage, and Ruby (Macs in Key Lime have their own batteries, and besides, I'm sure that those iBooks are equipped with some sort of nuclear device in order to keep the Key Lime brilliance shining for long). But our little Boo-Poo is more than cute--it's functional! Now I'm gonna assume that even without the added software, it's going to give your iMac between twenty and thirty minutes of extra life, but APC has also seen fit to finally include what Mac users have wanted for quite some time: Shutdown software. You PC weenies can chuckle to yourselves all you want on this one, hell you deserve this one, but after what seems like a zillion years I finally have a UPS that will shut down a Mac. It's perfect simplicity. You have a unsaved document open on your Mac and you run off to lunch. Now I'm not gonna go and call you stupid here, cause I've done things that are far worse, but in general let's just call it bad practice. So to fuller paint you a picture (Find: +"Fuller Brush" +joke) let's say you received some emergency call and ran out the door without saving. Well, with the APC Shutdown Manager, you're covered. Should your location get hit with one of California's charming new rolling blackouts (big thanks to all you rat bastards who pushed for deregulation) or any other source of power failure, the APC Shutdown Manager will kick in and shutdown your Mac according to your parameters. This may (and probably should) include the software's ability to also save unsaved documents before it "gracefully" shuts down the OS. Bottom Line: In this era of power crises, whether brought on by greedy power barons or simple overuse, everyone in an area subject to power loss of any degree will benefit from a battery backup, and APC is king of the UPS. And now our benevolent monarch has bestowed upon us some royally good software along with it at a tax so low, Robin Hood is going to retire. Back-UPS Pro USB 500 Clear
He died on tax day in 1987 taking with him the knowledge of "what happened to the other dollar". No wait a minute, Sherlock 2 just found the answer for me.
I like to think that Grandad would have used a Mac. (But he probably would have been a linux geek :)
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