The Cisco gear is:
- Catalyst 2950 switch
- Catalyst 2960 switch
- Cisco 2600 router
The before picture is no gem, but the after picture is not much better. I reorganized the shelf but to what end?
Showing posts with label wiring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wiring. Show all posts
February 2, 2012
Nice Rack
I aquired this little AV half rack from work a couple of months ago and have slowly been consolidating my tech into it ever since. It's not a perfect fit for everything, the PE 1950 sticks out the back about 8" or so and is sitting on a shelf because Dell rails don't fit threaded holes. The printer is too big.
The Cisco gear is:
The Cisco gear is:
February 17, 2007
Network
I miss my network. That sounds geeky enough but 2 years ago I had 5 machines running and another 3 not online but functional and another 2 or so worth of parts.
My desktop should be on the way soon which will be nice to have as a server and gaming machine. I just don't feel good about running my laptop for so many hours at a time.
I do have an ftp server running at my brother's house, which is nice because I don't have to do any of the hardware support. It serves as a backup for me and I can access the data almost anywhere in the world.
My old network consisted of a server that had almost 1 TB RAID5 and attached printer shared to the network. I had a gaming machine with plenty of ram and a nice video card. I had a laptop for blogging on the couch on the porch. My router had better firmware. Numerous USB devices attached to a powered up. Now it's just my laptop and pda.
Jay and I talked at one point about reducing clutter and stuff that has many other costs such as time and effort required for maintaining so many machines. He's right, it does require a lot more work to support 2 machines than 1, but I miss having a wide network. If there is a problem with the machine you're working on and you don't have time to fix it there is always another machine that you can finish your work on. Spilled something on your keyboard?, there's 3 spares. I had extras of everything and it was nice.
I could offset the load onto another machine. This was really handy when I ripped my entire CD collection. Every time I walked by the server I just exchanged CDs and walked away, it ripped automagically. Mydocs were stored on the server, accessible from any machine on the network.
Running a domain was fun but troublesome. Same with the DNS.
While most people looked at it as excessive to run all this equipment and services I found it thrilling. This is a learning experience for me. It's good to have upgraded the firmware on my pda, it didn't need it, but now I know how. It makes me more valuable in my job as a Tech.
When I finally own my own house, I plan on doing all my own structured cabling. There will be two phone, two data, 2 coax, and speaker to every room in the house, including bathrooms and kitchen. There will of course be wireless to stream all of those, but there is never a substitute for a wire.
Yeah I lie awake at night thinking about this stuff.
My desktop should be on the way soon which will be nice to have as a server and gaming machine. I just don't feel good about running my laptop for so many hours at a time.
I do have an ftp server running at my brother's house, which is nice because I don't have to do any of the hardware support. It serves as a backup for me and I can access the data almost anywhere in the world.
My old network consisted of a server that had almost 1 TB RAID5 and attached printer shared to the network. I had a gaming machine with plenty of ram and a nice video card. I had a laptop for blogging on the couch on the porch. My router had better firmware. Numerous USB devices attached to a powered up. Now it's just my laptop and pda.
Jay and I talked at one point about reducing clutter and stuff that has many other costs such as time and effort required for maintaining so many machines. He's right, it does require a lot more work to support 2 machines than 1, but I miss having a wide network. If there is a problem with the machine you're working on and you don't have time to fix it there is always another machine that you can finish your work on. Spilled something on your keyboard?, there's 3 spares. I had extras of everything and it was nice.
I could offset the load onto another machine. This was really handy when I ripped my entire CD collection. Every time I walked by the server I just exchanged CDs and walked away, it ripped automagically. Mydocs were stored on the server, accessible from any machine on the network.
Running a domain was fun but troublesome. Same with the DNS.
While most people looked at it as excessive to run all this equipment and services I found it thrilling. This is a learning experience for me. It's good to have upgraded the firmware on my pda, it didn't need it, but now I know how. It makes me more valuable in my job as a Tech.
When I finally own my own house, I plan on doing all my own structured cabling. There will be two phone, two data, 2 coax, and speaker to every room in the house, including bathrooms and kitchen. There will of course be wireless to stream all of those, but there is never a substitute for a wire.
Yeah I lie awake at night thinking about this stuff.
October 25, 2006
Structured Cable
My brother and I started running some cable last Saturday.
I went in the crawl space because I have experience doing it for ASR, who ungraciously employed me for four months.
We have 7 runs to do and we're moving the wiring closet from the cat room to under the stairs. We're also replacing the current wiring that runs outside of the house. While Cat5e is supposed to handle this kind of exposure, I think it's a terrible idea. It can get wet, moldy, attacked by animals or children.
During the trip down, I relearned several lessons that I'd forgotten. Here is my advice if you plan to do some yourself.
1. Don't bring anything you don't need.
2. Bring a flash light or two.
3. Take everything out of your pockets that you won't need: wallet, cigarettes etc. see #1
4. Know exactly where the run starts and ends
5. Wear clothes you don't care about
6. Bring a walkie talkie and stay in communication
7. Verify all drilling with someone standing on the floor above you. Have them stay there until you finish drilling.
8. Combine as many runs as possible, making fewer trips.
Other thoughts include sticking with a plan. Decide on one naming scheme for all your wires and stick with it. Nothing is more infuriating than terminating 7 runs that're all labeled differently.
We're about half way done with the runs and it looks like some of the speaker cable we bought is too short. The hard runs are done though and the cables in the crawl space look tidy. I'm proud of this.
Currently spinning - her snoring
I went in the crawl space because I have experience doing it for ASR, who ungraciously employed me for four months.
We have 7 runs to do and we're moving the wiring closet from the cat room to under the stairs. We're also replacing the current wiring that runs outside of the house. While Cat5e is supposed to handle this kind of exposure, I think it's a terrible idea. It can get wet, moldy, attacked by animals or children.
During the trip down, I relearned several lessons that I'd forgotten. Here is my advice if you plan to do some yourself.
1. Don't bring anything you don't need.
2. Bring a flash light or two.
3. Take everything out of your pockets that you won't need: wallet, cigarettes etc. see #1
4. Know exactly where the run starts and ends
5. Wear clothes you don't care about
6. Bring a walkie talkie and stay in communication
7. Verify all drilling with someone standing on the floor above you. Have them stay there until you finish drilling.
8. Combine as many runs as possible, making fewer trips.
Other thoughts include sticking with a plan. Decide on one naming scheme for all your wires and stick with it. Nothing is more infuriating than terminating 7 runs that're all labeled differently.
We're about half way done with the runs and it looks like some of the speaker cable we bought is too short. The hard runs are done though and the cables in the crawl space look tidy. I'm proud of this.
Currently spinning - her snoring
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