House power - Surge protectors, UPS and generator

In 2022 we lost power in Kanata multiple times.  The first time the power was out well over a day.  The problem we had was that we had no backup generator and using coolers didn't work very well.  After a day the ice had melted and the contents spoiled (very costly).  The other outages were short, but we had limited space to save the contents of the fridge/freezer.  We did have two UPS which allowed us a short time to check Hydro for how long and let work & family know we would have limited networking.  At that time I invested in a battery 'generator' which we used and worked well for four hours and used only 50% charge.  The other item we picked up was a solar charger and we could hook up tablets and cell phone for charging as long as there was sunlight.  On top of this we keep a supply of alkaline and rechargeable batters for lights and radios.  Another option we invested over the years were surge protectors for all our electronics.  It is much cheaper to replace a surge protector than our expensive electronics.

This year we had an ice storm and while we didn't lose power the UPS systems all kicked in five times.  This had us looking at a small generator to handle at least the following:

• Fridge.
• Freezer.
• Router.
• Laptop (work), cell and Chromebook.
• LED light.
• Small heater if winter.

Quick calculations showed me that with just that we would need about 1000 watts (not winter as it will be close to 1800 watts).  I picked a dual fuel generator rated for 3600 watts to give us a buffer (Allowing neighbor to hook her fridge in if required) along with neighbors hooking in to another extension to allow them to charge cell phones if an extended outage.

I wanted a dual fuel to give us options if an extended outage.  If we use all of the gasoline and no nearby station is open I could switch to propane as I keep a spare tank for the BBQ.

Along with the generator I picked up a cover from the company that will allow me to use the generator during rain/snow as they recommend NOT running it during that uncovered.  Also a very heavy chain and lock so that the generator doesn't wander away.  I will keep it in the back yard when not running (chained), but move it to outside the fence (chained) when running so that it is almost 20 feet away.

 I hope that we don't lose power this year, but I hope that we are more prepared for outages this time.

Deleted my Twitter account

 With the continual gong show of Twitter and the fact that it is much less than stable I finally deleted the account.

First thing I did was to request a full archive of my account.  After I downloaded and verified it was good I then asked to have it deactivated.  Following that I purged the Twitter clients from my phone, Chromebook and the third party client in Linux.

I was getting tired of seeing all of the hate groups and bigots getting reinstated and then posting with hatred, misinformation and intolerance.  Then there were the times I couldn't do anything as there was another outage.  The final reason as #MeNoSulk was in full bully mode and I don't want to take part in that type of social media site.  I created the account back in 2012, but it just isn't worth it.  I created an account in Mastodon and there is a learning curve, but the site is a lot more friendly.

Networking Homework time for a new router

Our home network is good and it reaches the whole house, but, there is a  weak zone.  My home office has access, but, at times the work laptop cannot find the SSID for several minutes when I start it up for the day.  When I check the signal strength it shows as low.  The issue is I cannot move where the router is and it works for every other location in the house, only the office has low signal strength.

Looking for

• Multiple SSIDs.  I want to at least have the work laptop on its own SSID so that nothing can see it even though I use a VPN to connect to work.  I prefer the option to have three.  One for the wife and myself, one for guests and one dedicated to work.  The three SSIDs is what I am running with now and it does work as I don't want any network to see what is running on the other network.
• Tri-Band.  For a mesh network I want the devices themselves to chat over their own band and not share the channel with my home network.
• Simple to use and set up.  I don't want to jump through hoops to get the thing to start and get configured.  The latest device is good and I had it up and running in under 5 minutes and that is the standard I expect from new devices.
• Good configuration software.  I don't want to do a deep dive for the basic setup to figure out how to use the advanced features.  Again the latest router is a bit better, but, I have to dig to find some options that I needed more accessible.
• Reporting was always a problem area and I just want to see a quick report and then save the output for analysis.
• Reasonable price.  I won't mind paying a slight premium, but, if it goes over $300 I will look at other products.