like others have mentioned, get a surge protector, like say from
Belkin which is available in Funan, Sim Lim and many hardware shops... many of them come with phone line protection as well for dial-up and ADSL protection (the Belkin one's at least also come with warranty to cover damage caused by failure of their product in case it fails to protect from surge)... if you don't want to switch off the main switch, just switch off the particular outlet on the multi-outlet powerbar... or just off the power supply switch of the computer if there is one... for low powered lights like 400-600W, can plug about 2 lights to each powerbar but for higher power try to use individual one-outlet ones...