UPS.. what do you do?

Ok.. need some advice here on what YOU do with your UPS... I have several month old iMac (20 inch) and bought a triplite UPS/Surge protector for it.. I bought it mostly because we have a lot of "power surges" in our neighborhood.. Power will go out for 1/2 second.. it was enough to cause my old PC to shutdown, reboot, etc.. Anyway this is what I got for the Mac...

http://www.tripplite.com/products/product.cfm?productID=3071

This evening my wife says to me "you need to shut down parallels when you leave because I don't want to have to shut that program down when I shut the computer off when it storms or the power surges"..

Anyway, I was under the understanding that with the UPS you don't need to shut the thing down for storms, surges, etc.. Am I putting too much faith in this thing, or are they really just designed to protect the computer when you are not there to do it?

Thanks!

i'd say anything short of a really severe lightening storm should be fine. of course that's just playing the odds. any lightening strike could hit your equipment if properly placed.

if it is a jolt through the wiring, a surge protector should do the job. normal surges and dips/brownouts and blackouts should be capably handled by any decent UPS without having to shut down the equipemt attached.


edit:
forgot to say, did you register the UPS? most companies will reimburse you up to a certain pre-determined dollar amount if your equipment gets fried while under their protection.