George posted a review on the Belkin 3-Outlet 918 Joule Mini Surge Protector with USB Charger a while back. At the time the price was $22 plus shipping. On Sunday, this will be available from Staples for $19.99, a little cheaper and shipping won’t need to be paid as most people will probably have a Staples store nearby.

Belkin Mini Surge Protector

Update: You can find the Belkin unit at CDW for $22.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1440970

I have been using them for several weeks now. Both in my Altec Lansing inMotion ipod portable speakers and in my Canon S2 IS camera. They last amazingly long and recharge way faster than my Energizer batteries. Usually the energizers can go dead within a few days. They also take over 30 minutes to charge on their own 15 minute speed charger. The eneloops can last over a year charged without use. They even come charged in the package. I also just charged a set of four AAs in 10 minutes on my Energizer charger.

They just rock. Finally what rechargeable batteries should have been all along. I definitely recommend these to anyone who wants to be a little green and not use disposable batteries.

But you should take this into account all the time. My dad twice has had his pocket get really warm all the sudden from spare batteries in his pocket shorting with contact from keys and change. He takes lots of photos so he carries a spare set all the time. He recently gave me a small plastic case made for carrying my spare batteries when I am out taking pictures. He now carries his this way. Unfortunately I cannot find the simple 4 battery case online to link here. BUT I did find a nice 8 battery case meant for photographers to toss in their bag. You can find the case over at B&H Photo for $9.00 USD. If only cyberguys carried like a five pack of the four battery plastic holders. I would buy that in a minute.

Storage is cheap these days. Just check out all the holiday sales on external usb drives. Get yourself one, copy all your data to it once a month then store it someplace safe where it is not plugged in. I use my safe here at home until I can move it to my safe deposit box away from the house.

I just spent two hours trying to recover data for my wife’s friend. The internal hard drive of the computer claims to be 2TB. A heck of a bargain when it originally was 40GB. The external drive she was using for backup is also toast. It sounds like a bomb waiting to go off. The reason for the loss? A nasty storm and only using a surge strip. Surge strips are a waste of money for anything but the most basic of electronics. Computers, game systems etc. Get yourself a UPS. That might have saved this person from the loss of all their data except what I could piece together from their ipod and a few usb thumb drives.

Still the best solution is an offline copy of all your data where no power hit or fire can affect it.