Fix It, Plug It, Push It, Screw It …
Yesterday I received a shelving unit from work to place all of my computers on. I was able to assemble it and place the computers and monitor on it before I headed to sleep. Today was the real challenge. I had to determine how I was going to bring power to the unit as well as the internet.
My sister in-law woke up while I was untangling cables in the lounge and started to help out. I moved the firewall downstairs so that the hub could be moved to the shelves. I got all three computers set up in the lounge but I was having a problem figuring out how to run a long enough wire over to the hub in the other room. No matter where I placed the firewall, I started running into variouse problems. It looked like I was going to have to get out the crimpers and create a new cable.
My sister in-law and I played out several scenarios. We decided to bring the cable modem itself downstairs so that we could then use a shorter wire to connect it to the firewall. The longer cable could then be used to connect the firewall up to the hub. She helped me get the coaxile cable through a hole in the ceiling and things really started going smothely.
Not only were we able to get the internet working for the three computers in the lounge, but I was able to also attach a splitter and get cable working on the TV that they had down there. We had some problems with the internet connection and I took a trip to wal-mart. I saw that there are now two different types of Coaxile cable (RJ6 and RJ59). Rather then getting a signal amplifier, I settled for the better cable, RJ6, and got a gold-plated signal splitter to replace the old one that we had. My sister in-law did the honor of connecting them and all of our problems vanished. I’m going to call the cable company about getting a second digital cable box for the lounge downstairs.
After the lounge was up and running, I concentrated on getting the quad up and running. The shelf is nice in that I can run wires through the sides and they don’t clutter up the back of the shelves. I have a KVM switch that lets me use all four computers using only 1 mouse, keyboard and monitor.
With the help of my sister in-law we started running wires for power and network cables under the floors. She had a hollow tube that she would drop a rope through. She then slid the tube under the rug and held one end of the rope from the other side of the hallway. Pulling the tube out from the rug, we were left with just the rope with each end exposed from the carpet on each side. She tied one end around a cable and pulled it through to the other side. What a nice trick.
I spent a good while getting all the wires connected to everything in the rite order. I need better network cables as the ends are busted off of most of my existing cables. They keep comming out of the sockets.
I was able to bring up each computer one at a time. Everything is working just fine. The Mac is a little hard to use because I can’t use the regular keyboard or mouse with it. I have a Mac keyboard connected directly to it rite now. I got a special adapter so that I could use a PC monitor with it.
In other news, I found a top for the two 10 gallon aquariums that I have that is compatable with habitrail tubes. I’m starting to rebuild my gerbils playground. My cats love it.
Tags: Shelf, Shelving, Rack, Shelving Unit, Furniture, Hardware, Router, Firewall, Hub, Cables, Connections, Lounge, Sister In-Law, Organizing, Computers