Use a third-party APC UPS management tool for more control

My APC UPS beeps whenever the power fails. If this happens at night, the beep is loud enough to wake people. The beep can be disabled by software in Windows, but not in the Mac version of PowerChute Personal Edition. The Mac version provides features that Mac OS X already provides: shutdown timers for any UPS connected via USB. I stumbled across the open source Unix app Apcupsd which gives me all the features I want from the Windows version of PowerChute: beep settings, battery change dates, and so forth. Furthermore, it can send email notifications for significant events. As someone who runs an old G4 as a home server, this is very nice to know. After downloading and installing Apcupsd is installed, run this command from Terminal: sudo /sbin/apctest. This will display a simple text-based menu, and it's self-explanatory. If you get an error message that reads Cannot find UPS device..., it could be because: ... view original article
Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:30:00 +0100

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