Surge protection is one of those things, like data backup, that you don’t deal with until you’ve been burned.
I had my first warning last year at Panera… While using their free WiFi on a work-provided Dell, the wall outlet fried my laptop. It wasn’t a total loss, but the battery/unit would no longer charge. Fortunately, my employer swapped my existing hard drive into a new computer. But I didn’t learn my “naked” power lesson.
Two weeks ago, at home, my Macbook Pro power adapter (near where it connects to the computer) started smoking and melted. Fortunately, I was working on it at the time and was able to quickly remove the adapter from both the computer and the non-protected wall outlet before starting a fire. (I’m sure my landlord thanks me.) And this finally motivated me enough to do something…
