In my neighborhood on the shores of Lake Chapala, the power hardly ever goes out during the good weather months. However, during the rainy season, the power flickers off and on a couple times a night if there are lightning storms nearby. And these flickers, which often only last a fraction of a second, are all that are needed to make your computer or satellite receiver crash.

What can you do to protect yourself from these outages? Buy an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). The typical UPS is large and heavy, because one of its components is a rechargeable battery large enough to run your computer for ten to 15 minutes. My UPS, for example, is 4 by 6 by 13 inches and weighs 14 pounds. UPSs are available at your local computer and hardware stores and at places like Costco and Wall-Mart. They usually cost between 650 and 1,500 pesos, depending on the size of the battery. Make sure the one you buy includes surge protection. You should plug your UPS into a properly grounded three-prong receptacle.

Usually power interruptions last only a fraction of a second. However, very occasionally, they will last for several hours. You want a large enough UPS to ensure that should that power outage be more than a fraction of a second, that you have sufficient time, should you be working on your computer, to save all of your information to your hard drive and shut your computer down. A slightly larger UPS would let you run one of those high-efficiency 13 watt compact fluorescent light bulbs for an hour or two, if you need to.