Bad Batteries - Part 2

I've been shopping around for a second battery for my new camera. I bought a Canon XSi digital SLR. It came with one battery, but I'm trying to get a second one as backup.What I'm finding is that these batteries are very expensive. The original OEM battery for my camera runs about $80 Canadian. Once I found that out, I checked out eBay to see if I could find a cheaper one. There seem to be only a few compatible batteries offered for about one quarter the price of an actual Canon. According to some posts to photography forums, some users have had good luck with third party batteries and others won't touch them. Also on eBay are original OEM Canon batteries for about $15 each. They do say they are Canon, but for that price, who knows. (They are being sold from Hong Kong, but I guess that doesn't matter as counterfeit batteries can come from anywhere.)
Here is a good link with more info on how to spot a fake. Unfortunately you normally can't tell a fake battery until you actuall have it in your hands.
http://www.chrismak.com/ebay_images/counterfeit.htm
Counterfeit batteries have been known to explode in your camera and of course it would not be covered by Canon. I might go with a third party compatible battery and see what happens.

Bubbling Batteries

Our server room at this site is pretty small, so we have only 9 UPSs for battery backup of important servers and equipment. Most are 700 to 1000 VA APC brand UPSs. It seems as if we are constantly changing the batteries for our UPSs. Apparently the life of a sealed battery is 3 years or less. When the replace battery indicator comes on, and the audible alarm sounds every 6 hours or so, we usually find batteries like the ones pictured above. The swelling happens when the battery will no longer take a charge from the UPS and the overcharging generates hydrogen gas which causes the battery case to swell.
It's a little scary looking, but we've never had any kind of 'spillage' as the UPS alarm usually gives us a heads up.

Multimedia Workouts

I was instructed a couple of years ago to get more exercise by my doctor. (You know, the high blood pressure, high cholestorol, excercise if you don't want to die sort of crap.) So we bought a treadmill and I get on a few times per week. It's a pretty decent NordicTrack unit. Working out is pretty boring when you're not doing anything and just looking at a beige wall.
I decided that I wanted to watch TV or videos while I exercised. I have a lot of music videos on the computer as well, so I was going to build a home workout entertainment centre.
I had an older 2 ghz computer with a DVD drive and bought a Hauppauge (I have no idea how to pronouce this.) WinTV PVR-150 tuner card from NCIX.com for about $39 on sale. I hooked it up to a nearby cable TV connection and mounted a 22 inch LCD monitor to the wall. I had first looked at MythTV which is an open source Ubuntu application which works like a PVR. I had tried for several weeks to get MythTV to run without much success even though there was quite a bit of support for it, so I fell back onto good old Windows XP.
The WinTV card came with tuner software to watch and record broadcasts. So I can watch TV, DVDs, video clips (AVI, Mpg, etc.), listen to MP3s and actually do work on the computer if I could figure out how to run and type at the same time.
It's been working pretty well and the time goes by a lot faster and it's almost fun to workout. (Just kidding. It still really sucks.)

Computers and Viruses (of the Swine kind)

Our IT department, of which I am a member, had a pandemic meeting this morning. This is obviously due to the H1N1 virus (swine flu) which is going around. At our head office location, a city of about 200,000, there have only been 5 cases of H1N1 found.
What does H1N1 have to do with computers? Not much really. The meeting was just about how to protect ourselves from the virus and procedures to follow if we do think we have it. We'll be getting a couple bottles of Purell (waterless disenfectant) anyways.
I do come in direct contact with quite a few people during the course of the day, (and many more indirectly through their contact with computer keyboards that I touch). At this point it's unlikely we have very much to worry about in regards to this flu, athough experts say computer computer keyboards carry quite a few nasty bugs.

Going green isn't easy

At work we've been struggling with how to dispose of our old computer equipment. (I mean really old stuff that we wouldn't even be able to donate) These are mainly 286 level computers. (Don't ask why we even still have these - If you're a packrat like me, you understand) During the past 15 or so years, we've been leasing computers so disposal wasn't a problem as they would have to be returned to the company at the end of the lease.
While cleaning out the back of one of the storage rooms, we've decided to be environmentally friendly and not just toss the old stuff in the compactor.
We checked with the local government to see where we could drop our load of computers. They told us to just put it out with the garbage. The city's E-Waste recycling program has been 'temporarily suspended due to declining markets'. I guess there isn't enough profit in saving the environment at the current time. A call to the Salvation Army Thrift Store came up empty as well. We were told only stores in larger cities will take old equipment. (Unless it is a working system that they can sell.) The local Staples store will, for a limited time, take your old computer. (But, only 3 computers per day.) We currently have about thirty or more systems to get rid of. "Say, weren't you guys here yesterday, and the day before?"
So it appears that unless you live in a larger city, (more than 60,000) you may be out of luck when it comes to going green.