Small cheap "reminder" watch for my wrist

Perhaps not if, like us, you live in an area that has quite a lot of electrical storms? We have avoided it but most of our neighbours have had fried liveboxes more than once. Things get switched off at night.

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The trouble with leaving your PC on all night is that if everyone starts doing it then it all adds up to a lot of electricity, whole power stations worth. This is why the EU implemented low power standby requirements on manufacturers many years ago

I worked on consumer equipment implementing these directives for many years. Before this, it was common for equipment to consume the same or similar power in standby then when powered up.
I aways put my PC into sleep mode when not in use. It powers back up in seconds with everything as it was when put to sleep, and consumes very little power.
The main reason given years ago for leaving equipment on was that powering up/down was stressful on electronic equipment and spinning disks. These days, that’s not really true,and for most things never really was … unless you go back to the days of valves.

Indeed @JaneJones , we had thunderstorms last night and this morning. I always now remove the box from the telephone socket if storms are forecast or heard after having it, my VPN router and a network connected printer fried during a thunderstorm here :sob::angry::cloud_with_lightning_and_rain:
Edit: I’ve been looking at lightningmaps.org all day and am nervous about where the storms currently north of Barcelona are going. I hope nowhere near us :zap::zap::zap:

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I run my livebox/PC/printer etc through a surge protected UPS, including surge protected RJ45 points for the phone line. All been good so far so I don’t have to worry too much if there ix a storm when we’re out, but I do unplug if its uncomfortably close when home

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I mentioned that we have a UPS so power outages are of less concern if they don’t last beyond the capacity of the UPS. It also has power protection (as most do) so spikes equally are not a problem… we haven’t fried a Livebox (or in recent times, our Bouygues 4G router since using one.
The whole network is protected (including the router, data switch and NAS) as all is connected to it.
It is also possible to set the UPS to close down the PC automatically if it approaches the capacity of the battery during an outage but the other devices seem to be tolerant of a sudden denial of power given the spike protection.

That site keeps “pinging” OH and proclaiming that we have storms nearby… and when we check… sometimes they are nearby and sometimes they are in deepest Spain… :wink:

But I do love watching the storms moving hither and thither… so long as they’re not actually Here…

The real problem for us is what comes down the copper telephone line. What we had fried was the modem and what was connected to it via ethernet. Never had anything connected only to the mains get fried. If you have fibre, then you should be fine, but that copper telecom line has no real protection for lightning strikes like the power grid does.

We are to get Fibre towards the end of August - looking forward to it!
However, @Mark is correct in what he outlined… you can protect the line using the RJ11 connections - one in to the surge protector and another one out to the telephone device (modem/router/Livebox whatever).
Our GTL is also equipped with a surge protector for the telecom side of things but that may not always be the case with older installations of course.

I didn’t last night, left it to sleep, and this morning the computer started up so much more quickly than it used to. There was always that slow annoying start-up period. Gone!

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I agree - except life is too short to wind strimmer string onto a spool, so I buy the spool and string that fits my old strimmer.
I much admire your way of life Jane but I really don’t know how you have the time. I’ve decided you don’t sleep much. :grinning:

Currently averaging 4 hours as on course of steroids!! House is clean tho’…

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Hope you get a bit more than that when the course finishes.

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Our beloved faithful friend Alfie becomes a teenager today. He has been on steroids for a while now but never has a problem with sleeping away many hours of the day and night. Must be a different type of steroid :rofl:

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For Mac/Macbook users:

A quick summary concludes that a shut down is needed to clear RAM and check for program updates, so at least once a week.

I also note that a complete shut down/off leaving the battery 100% charged (or 0%) is toxic for the battery :flushed:

Are we still talking about MacDonald’s? I’m getting confused about which topic is which?

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with Linux, generally all that is needed occasionally is a reboot to clear the system and this is usually prompted after a notification of the availability of an update which requires it. Linux also has a number of tools to clean system logs and temporary files - old Kernels and the such like quite efficiently. MacOS is very Linux-like so that advice surprises me a little… but I don’t dispute it :wink:
OTOH, windoze… :roll_eyes:

Long term is usually a tiny dose and you get accustomed to them….or preferably you don’t as not something to take long term unless no other option.

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graham is right, you don’t need a mobile phone signal for the Alarm Clock app to work and you can set it to remind you once or every day etc. Another alternative would be to ask Alexa to remind you and for Alexa to work all you need is an Internet connection via your router. If you have the Echo Show or Mini Show the purpose of the reminder will appear on the screen.

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Ooooh Nooo! Creepy idea. More seriously - how does that work if I am half way down our 2 hectare garden or in the cottage at the bottom of the garden hoovering? Or even upstairs in our big old house looking for stuff in the attic? A yell from the kitchen table “TAKE YOUR PILLS” So the entire neighbourhood hears. Oh! the image gets worse.
The simplest solution by far for me is the cheap, small watch on the wrist that buzzes discretely . That’s tough enough having spent a lifetime NOT forever looking at some ghastly dial at the end of my left arm.

and… why not ??? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
My whole neighbourhood hears OH bellowing at me NOT to run as I race out the door on an urgent mission… and folk take up the chorus as I dash by… the French equivalent of “take care, don’t run, don’t fall… don’t break anything…” :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: