UPS APC how use?

It's alright to leave the UPS connected and on all the time. Just beware that some model may play an alarm sound, should there be a power loss, that can be very annoying if you are sleeping not far from it.
If everything is set up correctly you should be able to leave the airport running all day too.

The way I use mine is:

- Plug UPS into wall socket
- Plug Mac power cable into UPS
- Plug USB cable between Mac and UPS -- you will now have settings in the System Preferences pane for energy related to the UPS, as well as monitors of the UPS status. You use the System Preferences on the Mac to define things like whether the Mac should log the user out and shut down at a certain UPS battery state -- e.g. I think I let my UPS drain 50% or 75% or something like that, and then my Mac shuts itself down.
- Let it charge.

I leave the UPS on 100% of the time, although my Mac sleeps -- I don't shut it off frequently. This probably has a small impact on your overall energy consumption, but I don't think the UPS consumes a huge amount of energy at rest. Also it allows the UPS to maintain its battery state, so the UPS will probably be slightly more reliable if you don't shut it off all the time.

There should be a way to test the UPS -- holding down the power button or something like that. You should be able to do this after you've had it charge for a day or so. There should be instructions in the manual for that.

How hot is the Airport Extreme Basestation getting? I have the old one -- 802.11g -- and it does not get hot, but the Airport is designed to be left running indefinitely at near 100% uptime. Mine has only been turned off for maybe ten days total since January 2004, when I was moving to Florida, etc....

misterredman said:

Just beware that some model may play an alarm sound, should there be a power loss, that can be very annoying if you are sleeping not far from it.

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This is a good point, although presumably, if your data is valuable enough to have a UPS, you would want to be awakened.

Keep the UPS on.

All UPS units are designed to be left plugged in at all times. They'll get a little toasty, but don't worry. The power drain is fairly minimal, AVR units may be a bit worse though (However, they provide completely clean power to your mac which will probably double the life of the PSU at a minimum).

The mac also will use a small amount of power even while off, this is normal. All modern computers do this to keep an eye out for things like Wake On Lan, and keep the clock running for scheduled boots. (The clock can continue running without power, but it will reduce the life of the RTC's battery)