I use a laptop as a backup. which assures me of 5+ hours of uninterrupted trading. For me this was most cost effective, since I needed one anyway for travel. In case of power outage, I would have to use my dial-up connection since the DSL modem would be out, but the difference in quote speed is negligible. O.
I think I'll write one of those 'Emergency Procedures' binder, and pay my superintendend 10$ so that he cuts the building's power once a while, just to keep me on my toes, like inspector Clouseau and Kato.
dottom, do you find the lack of screen real estate on laptops to be prohibitive for your trading? for example, i am running 2560x1024 across two monitors and would have a hard time trading at 1024x768.
Since I'm a 100% mechanical systems trader, I have two laptops up at once. I run 3 instances of Wealth-Lab on one laptop (I follow 3 markets at once), and on the other laptop I have TWS and J-Trader up. When Wealth-Lab signals a buy alert I enter an order in either TWS or J-Trader. I do have a desktop too where I can play games and (*gasp*) post on ET while I trade. I like the freedom of a laptop that I can take with me to any cafe and do continuing research. My desktop has more power and is used to crunch numbers if I need to run some tests or simulations over night. I am considering getting docking stations with my laptops and a nice set of LCD monitors, but my needs are pretty simple being a 100% mechanical trader. I can totally see where a more discretionary or systematic approach requires more screen space. Or if you are following more than just 2-3 markets.
http://www.shopharmony.com/secure/products.asp?ItemID=999237 It's what I have and it's fantastic. 1250 VA/ 670 W and 40-100 minutes of battery time (depending on what you hook up to it). It's the best deal I could find in UPS's -- better features than the others and a great price. --opm8