Haven't run a computer without UPS in over 20 years. Surge protectors can actually AMPLIFY spikes - given the right conditions - and are nowhere near as good.
My UPS supplies used to always be APC - still buy them - but also include Belkin in my list now. Size - minimum size is 1200 VA - even for the smallest of desktop systems - worth the extra $100 - and the batteries last longer when you oversize. Have UPS systems (for my Sun Systems) of up to 3,000 VA - take dadgum near a car battery to run those.
As to re-installing XP - been a while since had to do that, but I was using the MS-XP disk (not a resellers crippled disk) - with SP3 built in. No problems with USB recognition from boot up on that. Could also have to do with my refusal to install the 'crippled' home edition(s) of XP also - I will only install the Pro version.
Wireless keyboards and mice DO cause problems upon re-installs - hardwire is always used for base installs.
After first tastes of Vista - refused to allow that OS in my house or office - stayed with XP. Might go with the newest ms os on my next build - simply because the 64-bit is now stable from microslop - and the 64-bit allows more than 2gig of mem to actually be useful when running the ms os. (I also run various flavours of unix on intel boxes - at times - which have been 64 bit since the early 90's.)
Sun's HUGE mistake, and it cost them their business, was in shutting out the ms options from their os - not allowing ms file systems to be accessed natively. The guy at the top had a corn cobb up his rear when it came to MS - and it cost them big time - and all their extremely loyal customers. Networking and security were ALWAYS far superior and easier on Sun's than it ever was (or still is) from microslap.
Remote mounts were a breeze .... and SECURE.
By far the BEST thing about Sun (and other Unix) Systems - a TRUE system recovery backup could be run. and booting to a USABLE operating system straight off the CD was not only possible, but was the NORM. Boot off the CD - recover backup IMMEDIATELY. I could be back to a full SYSTEM RECOVERY - all software, all keys, all user config, all Oracle databases .... absolutely EVERYTHING - for a multi-gigabyte system that lost it's system disk - in under 4 hours. Not at all possible with microshit systems. Technically, I never had to 're-install' the Sun-OS - EVER - when recovering from a system disk crash - if even a half-assed system backup had been run.
MS still does not have true system recovery capability - and never will due to their brain dead system management philosophies.
As to roller-ball mice - misused terminology there, dgp - should have simply said 'mechanical mice' - all of which have that silly little lint and cruft gathering 'rubber' ball inside of them. The 'roller ball' mouse - where there is a big ball up on top that one uses for navigation is an entirely different animule - and which, for those that like it, they REALLY like it and will never switch to anything else.
Linda - on their very, very best day - CompUSA was still no challenge to MicroCenter. I don't have very many nice things to say about CompUSA - they NEVER impressed me - and I knew the 'original' store from which CompUSA was born ... what was it 'Computer Warehouse' or some such nonsense. Everybody raved about it - went there, was totally disillisioned - lousy. .... Ah, just looked it up, "Soft Warehouse" - Addison, Tx. Hyup - my opinion stands.
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