Z/Web

I woke up today with a simple task. One of my cats, Mayhem, loves to chew wires, so I’ve always got to think of him when wiring anything. In fact, the long Ethernet cable I had going down the hallway from my office is chewed up in a number of places. The cats had been locked in the laundry room since we arrived and I didn’t want to let them out until things had settled a bit and until I had all wires hidden. That meant I needed to wire Ethernet from my office to the living room before I could release them. I’d already plotted my route: instead of going under the house I’d simply lay a wire outside. There were already phone and cable wires there, so one more made little difference. That meant two holes: one out of the office and one in in the living room. Simple. I just needed some cover plates and Ethernet wire. I figured I’d have it done by noon. Silly me. I went to Radio Shack first thing and bought the bare wire, crimper, RJ-45 ends, and cover plates. Then I set about making a simple test Ethernet wire. Stupidly, I followed the directions on the crimper tool. I don’t know what kind of wire that was for but it was definitely not for Ethernet. My first several attempts failed. The cable didn’t work. Then I discovered I’d misread the box on the RJ-45 ends. It read “8-wire connector” and there weren’t eight connectors in the box, only five. So my two boxes were only ten, not sixteen. Suddenly I was down to just a few left and I still hadn’t created a cable that worked. I went on the Web and found a site that explained, with colorful diagrams, how to make an Ethernet cable. It’s not really that hard, but it’s tricky. The color sequence of the wires is critical, and you must get the wires to reach all the way to the end of the RJ-45 piece before you crimp. I discovered the key was cutting the wires to the same length after you had them unwound. You see, they are wound together in pairs and when you unravel them, they have different lengths. When you shove the wires into an end the longest wire might reach the end but some are shorter and don’t. By clipping them all to the same length you ensure that all the wires can reach the end. I created a few that had just one wire that didn’t each the far end of the plastic clip and the cable didn’t work. Once I figured that out, I could make a successful cable, but meanwhile I’d used all my clips testing and needed to go buy more! I decided to try drilling a hole in the wall to make sure I wouldn’t have trouble there. Ah, another problem. My drill bit wasn’t long enough! It went through the drywall but couldn’t reach the outside of the house. So off I went to buy a longer drill bit, and more clips. The bottom line: this two hour project took the entire day. The cover plate I’d bought need a cutout in the wall so I had to use my jigsaw to cut an opening in the wall so the plate would fit. Then I had to figure out how to get wire through the holes I’d drilled. It sounds easy, but isn’t. A house wall is really two walls, and outer and an inner, with open space filled with insulation in between. Getting a cable to pass through both holes is tricky. I finally unbent a metal clothes hanger and taped the Ethernet cable to the end and used the stiff hanger wire to poke through until I got it through both holes. This had to be done twice, of course, once in the living room and once in the office. I’d originally planned to run Ethernet to my bedroom as well, but this was taking so long I decided to postpone that for another day. In the end, I got everything wired and it worked. The Tivos, Playstation 2, and my laptop all have wired Internet in the living room, which is sweet indeed. Now there’s no cable traipsing through the hallway and the cats are free to explore the new house. The cats had thoroughly explored the laundry room and were really wanting out. The laundry room door has a vent that the cats could see through and watch legs passing by and see glimpses of the exciting new world but they couldn’t go out there. Now, finally, I flung the door open and they began to explore. It was hilarious watching them. I’d closed the doors to all the bedrooms and bathroom, so there was just the open dining room, kitchen, living room, and hallway to see. Immediately the cats began running about smelling everything. They quickly found the limits of the house (there was no way outside), but there was lots of explore inside. It was an hour or so before they settled down and came to purr at my feet. I was relaxing and watching some TV for what seemed like the first time in months but was really a couple weeks. Fortunately Tivo had recorded everything so I only missed last weekend’s shows. I was worried how the cats would settle in but as I watched TV, Mayhem came and hopped in my lap, purring happily. Mischief was not quite as secure, but seemed very happy to see me. He’d go explore then come back and rub against my legs and enjoy a pat on the head before going off again. When a truck rumbled by or a strange sound happened, he’d bolt for the safety of the laundry room. That was excellent: I wanted them to see that room as a secure refuge, not a prison. Cats need a den.