Spring Cleaning

Todays Radio MacGuys podcast focuses on the weather and protecting your computer from lightning hits. Here in North Florida, spring has once again sprung and it's a good time to get clean out the computer room and optimize your systems. In my neck of the woods, spring brings some pretty spectacular thunderstorms. Now is a good time to talk a look at all the various wires that connect to your computer and make sure that each one has an appropriate lightning protector on it.

Most of us have some sort of power strip between our computer and the power plug on the wall. If we're smart (or lucky) that power strip is also a surge protector. When lightning hits a power line (and it does hit them), it travels down the wire, into buildings and into devices connected to the building power. Lightning has so much energy that it can physically destroy the circuity inside a computer.