The Light at the End of the Tunnel . . .

. . . is the glow from my television screen and computer monitor!

I know I skipped a week of posting - maybe you didn't notice - but we've been taking it rather slow here at noTTafarm.  Scott has been spending the majority of his free time working with the various media cables he has fed throughout the walls of the house.  The wires are all converging in the basement where the magic that is satellite television and Internet access happens.  I don't understand how most of this happens (I'm still trying to figure out how a toaster works) but here are some of the action shots from the past week:

Leo helps Scott "make up" a cable in the small bedroom/temporary home office.  Scott has been using all of the cool tools that Troy dropped off two weeks ago to get the cables and outlets prepared for duty.

On a wall in the 1920 portion of the basement, Scott mounted a piece of sub-floor to create a Patch Panel - which is a fancy name for a place where all the cables go to live and make life better.

Each type of cable is sheathed in a different color.  Blue is for Internet, Red is for Plain Old Telephone , and Black and White are for Satellite.
 

The computer network cable is Cat 6 Ethernet, comprised of four twisted pair wires.

"Orange/white, orange, green/white, blue, blue/white, green, brown/white, brown"  This is the order of the T568B wiring standard sequence used with the Cat 6 cable...they have to be placed "just so" inside the slip-on jack in order for the magic to happen.

The cables are grouped together and run through the joists in the basement then up through the wall cavities to outlets in the library, parlor, bedroom, home office, and beyond. ...available, even if they'll never all be used at once.

By Thursday, November 17, Scott is nearly finished.  The two black boxes on the left are the modem/router and the 16-port, 10/100 Mbps hub switch.  The black cables in the center are for satellite television (which is finally going to be hooked-up by Direct TV on Saturday!) 

The phone lines converge in the 8-port punch-down telephone expansion module.  Yes, youngsters, we will have plenty of land line phones for you to use to dial up your pals.

Stay Tuned for Our Next High Tech Adventure! 
(But I may be busy watching TV. . . so be patient.  It's been a quiet few weeks!)