Hey, is this cool or what? I'm sitting on my couch in the living room, updating my weblog. Thanks to the miracle of structured wiring, I was able to run some Cat5e cable from the guest room where the computer (and more importantly the router) is, through the closets into the basement and up through the wall into the living room. It only took most of the day to figure out how to make it work. When I took the day off Thursday I spent some time drilling holes in the floors and ceilings, and that all went pretty well. So today was the moment of truth where I'd actually try to run the wire through all the holes, and that actually went pretty smoothly too. The hard part was getting the hang of what to do at both ends of the wire to get it to work. Turns out the little wires that stick into the RJ45 connector have to go in a certain order. And the little quickport gizmo at the other end that fits into the wall plate has to have its wires pushed in far enough to make contact with the little connectors inside. It only took about six hours (including a few breaks to do other stuff, like eat and get the dry cleaning) to figure out the right way to do it. So the second one, for the kids' computer in the kitchen, should go much faster. I've had a fair amount of experience with electrical wiring, and this kind of wiring should be much easier, since you don't have to worry about getting electrocuted, for one thing, so I'm hopeful that now I've got the hang of it anyway. One more trip to Home Depot for some incidentals and it'll be all set. If I can clear a path in the attic, the bedrooms will get done eventually, also.



The main impetus for doing this is that for the last two years, since I've been at State Street, every time Mom comes to visit I run the risk of having to barge into the guest room in the middle of the night to do a support call. It hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't mean it won't. Plus it would be nice to be able to watch tv while I'm on the computer doing some mindless task like monitoring the app servers or whatever. Trading Spaces is on right now!