APC ES 550G UPS

APC ES 550G UPS

I installed the APC ES 550G UPS to my Linux Mint 13 desktop. I got the 'apcupsd' package via the repository and had it all up and running within a half hour. Get the 'apcupsd', 'apcupsd-cgi' and the 'apcupsd-doc' packages via apt-get or synaptic. 

Then edit the '/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf' file. Change 'UPSCABLE' to 'usb' and 'UPSTYPE' to 'usb'. You can change times etc. if you want but it is not necessary to get things going. Look at the rest of the stuff in '/etc/apcupsd' just to get an idea how everything works. You might want to comment out the 'FIELD UPSTEMP' 'UPS Temp' in 'multimon.conf' as this device does not seem to support temperature. 

You will also need to edit the '/etc/default/apcupsd' and change 'ISCONFIGURED=no' to 'yes'. Then you can start the daemon by 'sudo invoke-rc.d apcupsd start' (or 'sudo /etc/init.d/apcupsd start'). You can use your browser to check the status by going to 'http://localhost/cgi-bin/apcusbd/multimon.cgi'.

I have my computer and my wireless router plugged into the UPS. I tested it out by pulling the UPS plug and sure enough the power stayed up and the power outage was logged in my 'syslog', an email was sent to 'root' and the 'multimon.cgi' reported the outage. I plugged the UPS back in and the event was logged on all three: 'email', 'syslog' and 'multimon.cgi'.

All in all the APC UPS seems to work just fine. The status log, '/var/log/apcupsd.status', shows an UPS load of only 26% and predicts 27 minutes of UPS power. With only 26% load I may plug my phone answering machine in to the UPS also so I don't have to reset the clock every time we have a brown-out.

For $59.99 from Amazon.com this seems like a perfect fit for my home system. I understand that APC has software for Window$ if you really want to punish yourself. As always APC like most vendors could mention that the UPS works just fine on Linux and point people to the 'apcupsd' packages. But maybe APC is afraid of alienating Microsoft or maybe they just figure if someone is smart enough to use Linux they are probably smart enough to figure everything out for themselves.

My New PHP Project

I have just added three new projects to GitHub and PHPClasses. The projects are:

1. SiteClass framework. 
2. PHP SlideShow.
3. MySqlSlideShow.

The projects can be installed via 'Composer' as follows:

composer require bartonlp/site-class:dev-master
composer require bartonlp/slideshow:dev-master
composer require bartonlp/mysqlslideshow:dev-master

Each project is well documented both in the code itself and in the README files. Enjoy.

Update 2016-12-12
I have added two more projects:
UpdateSite
RssFeed

composer require bartonlp/updatesite:dev-aster

composer require bartonlp/rssfeed:dev-master

The Big Lie

Over and over we are told the big lie by our government. The lies are always designed to strike fear in our hearts. During the Vietnam war the lie was "If Vietnam falls so will all of Southeast Asia". We lost that war and of course all of Southeast Asia did not fall.

Now after we invaded Afghanistan and then occupied it for 10 long years sacrificing our solders and our economy we are told that "If we pull out of Afghanistan before 2014 all will be lost". After 10 years we will lose everything if we don't stick it out for another two years. Really?

Now as we face off with Iran we are told that "If Iran is allowed to peruse nuclear energy the world will come to an end". We have a lot of gall preaching to the world. We are the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons. We have polluted the atmosphere with atomic bomb tests more than any other country (actually more than all other countries put together). Why should Iran not become a member of the nuclear club? Are they more of a danger than North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, India, the UK, France, or China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons)?

There are over 30 countries that have nuclear power facilities, why shouldn't Iran? Who are we to say they don't have the right to use nuclear power? 

We should stop believing the big lies. We should pull out of Afghanistan immediately. We should stop the sanction against Iran and say we are sorry. We should stop fomenting war.