With wonky power, especially in the country, a UPS is a good investment for all computers. Keep an eye on UPS sales at your local computer super store. You want to buy locally because shipping costs are series for something so heavy.
Besides keeping you going through short outages, a UPS also acts as a line conditioner to help you through brownouts. It will also protect your equipment if you're running a generator. Get a UPS big enough to keep your two (?) desktop systems running for at least 15 minutes.
A UPS uses lead-acid batteries, like in a car. They are the least susceptible to "memory" and loss of capacity over time. Laptop batteries, even the best ones, lose significant capacity after three years. By then, "fresh" replacement batteries (unless they're a common type still in production) are hard to find. By old IBM laptop works great, but I could only get about an hour of battery time now since the battery is five years old. And all the "replacement" batteries are just as old.
Your "emergency" laptop, and dialup connection, can last a long time if you power them off that big honkin' UPS after your shut down your desktop systems.
Oh, and think about a small UPS just to power your cable modem or router, too. Stable power will help with keeping the network up and trouble-free.
In the “sheesh, somebody does have worse luck than the Stormhands” dept., wife just told me that during the storm the other night lightning fried our nayber’s (and wife’s boss lady) son’s computer AND hot tub. The hot tub is under warranty...but storms aren’t covered.
Then today at a sales presentation, she fell and the hand cart rolled over her. She’s okay, just bruised and a little bloody.
‘Course she won’t be able to relax in the hot tub tonight.
My .02 on generators and UPS’s, since I’ve been around this tree a little bit:
Not all UPS will work with a generator. It has to be designed specifically to operate off a generator or it may cycle on/off rapidly and damage the UPS. I ruined an APC 600 that way. Oops. I don’t remember the technical details but it isn’t so much about the quality of the power, it’s something about the waveform or some such that the circuitry just can’t figure out what to do.
The APC website has a good section about generators, IIRC.
Depending on what other loads are on the genset, the generator may actually provide *cleaner* power than the utility company does. There are dips and spikes in utility power due to loads elsewhere on the grid. If the loads on a genset are constant then the power will be really clean.
That’s not true of course if there are variable loads like a refrigerator, water heater, electric heater and such or if the total load is close to the max for the generator.
When the power was out for a few days last winter I just bypassed the UPS and ran the desktops direct from the generator without any trouble at all.
I’m still tardy getting a UPS that likes generators. Got to do that one of these days.