As I mentioned in a recent post, my friend Matthias got a notification the other day that the battery on his wireless mouse needed to be charged.

Well, a mouse battery isn’t the only thing those notifications are good for.

I live in a pretty remote part of the country. There’s only one fiber line in and we get at least a few (5 so far this year) power outages a year. The fiber outages tend to be caused by constructions crews (mostly in Wisconsin) but wild animals, mother nature and single fault tolerance equipment make the power unreliable. A UPS is a good investment; at the very least, it will let you shut the computers down properly.

The last time the power went out, I couldn’t figure out what was beeping. That’s where the message that showed up on my screen was useful:

Ubuntu – “Hey, idiot! The obnoxious beeping is the giant battery you connected to me!”

Have a picture of an event notification you’ve gotten from Ubuntu? Post it in a comment.