Irwin Electronics Blog

Irwin Electronics Weekly Digest Surge Protection Much more than the plug-in unit under your desk! by David Irwin on February 26th When someone mentions surge protector, do you think of the little multi-plug unit under your desk? Most people believe that’s all there is. Did you know that is level 3 protection and the LAST line of defense? Are you protecting all your data paths? Surges can occur on phone and cable lines as well. No level 3 surge protector will protect against lightning! Do you have lightning arrestors installed? What about your appliances? Your air conditioner, washer, dryer, refrigerator, etc., are all susceptible to surges. If lightning strikes, are you prepared to replace all your appliances? Alright, I see where you’re going with that one. Pay the insurance deductible and get all new appliances. But how much will your insurance pay for your old appliances? You will need to pay the difference for the upgrades. What about the disposal of your old

Irwin Electronics   Weekly Digest   Privacy Who’s tracking you? by  David Irwin  on February 5th Okay, so you have Anti-virus and Anti-malware software installed, that’s great. Assuming, of course, your running Windows or OSx. These help to protect you from hackers around the world that want to break into your PC and steal your identity. But what about companies like Google and Microsoft? At least Google tells you they collect data, what they collect, and how they use that data: https://privacy.google.com/your-data.html Some people refuse to use Google because of this, yet they’re using Microsoft Windows and possibly the Edge browser. By default, Microsoft collects much of the same data, and more. Google is an advertising company after all. The more information they know about you, the more relevant the ads you will see displayed. Companies pay Google big bucks to get their ads in front of people that may be interested in their products. Ever searc

Custom Built Computers What exactly is Custom Built? What are the advantages/disadvantages? Will it cost me a lot more? A custom built computer means hand selected components for your specific needs. Off the shelf, computers will likely meet your needs, but they are general purpose machines, designed to run a broad range of tasks. That doesn't mean a custom built PC will not run other tasks. In most cases, it will run all tasks better, but it is specifically built to excel at a specific task. The best example is gaming. You can buy gaming PC's that will run most games very well. But what if you want to dominate at one game in particular? You could spend thousands on a gaming PC that will help you do that, or we can build one specially tuned to run your game at top speed for much less. Perhaps you need to transcode HD video. A gaming PC will do that well too. But we can build one that does it faster, for less. One of our customers makes custom motorcyc