Apologies for this e-mail not threading correctly, I just joined the list to post to this message thread.
karlc at keckec.com wrote:
What do y'all do to keep computer cables organized? This is a home situation with 8 or so computers and related stuff around and under a desk.
Any good solutions out there? Hardware? Ideas?
Here's cheap bastard solution #1: http://www.doityourself.com/invt/1172881 http://www.theessentialscompany.co.uk/Ties.html#Wire%20Twist%20Ties They're basically green garbage bag ties. The first link, the stuff comes in a spool, the second link, they come pre-cut in 6 inch lengths. Home Depot has them both in the Garden section. Check near the cash register outside, that's where I find them usually. The spool is handy if you don't know how much you need to wrap a wire bundle comfortably. If you take the cardboard backing off of the spool, the spool will fit into the palm of your hand or in the back pocket of a pair of pants. The spool comes with a built-in wire cutter, so you can cut your own custom lengths of wire ties! For bundles bigger than a 1/2 inch or so, I like to wrap two or three times around to keep the wires in place and prevent the wire ties from coming undone if you move the bundle around at all. The pre-cut ones are good for lengths of CAT5 that you have sitting around, or other miscellaneous wires, like phone wires, sound card wires, printer hookup cables, etc. Total cost for the spool is something like $2US and for a baggie of pre-cut ties, probably $2US also. And since it's so cheap, you can cut it later on if you need to change/add wires in your bundle. Also good for 'mocking' up wire runs, as wires can be added easily as you run them. Here's cheap bastard solution #2: This solution may actually cost you nothing. If you have a telephone wiring closet at work that you can access, go into it and start picking up all the lengths of hook-up wire pairs that are laying around on the floor. The wire pairs look like the wires in the picture on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/66_block This also works if you have short lengths (1 to 3 feet let's say) of CAT5 meant for wiring buildings (meaning the wires inside the CAT5 cable are solid copper and not stranded copper) that are left over from some project and you don't know what to do with them. Just peel off the outside shielding and pull the wire pairs out. Use the string that's inside the CAT5 cable to cut the outside plastic away, just pull the string "down" into the outside plastic shielding, and it will start cutting it open for you. The wire pairs will slide out of a short length of CAT5 if you pull on them hard enough. Make sure you leave the wire pairs together, wrapping wire bundles works better with a pair of wires rather than using just one wire from the pair. Any length of wire pair over 4 inches or so can be looped around bundles and tied like the wire ties I explained above, and will stay nicely wrapped, since it's basically solid copper wire. If you look at the bundles in a large phone room, the phone company people who work in there most likely have already done this to manage their wire bundles. If you're really lucky, the phone company people may have 'left' behind a spool of hookup wire for hooking up extensions as well as helping manage cable runs. You could most likely 'borrow' from the spool from from time to time and nobody would ever know. Again, if you need to add/change the bundle you make with the twisted wire pairs, you cut it off the wire pair, toss it in the trash, and apply new wire to your re-worked bundle. Enjoy, Brian -- "(Rock and roll is) a rebellion against the Puritan ethic which was decreed from the beginning of our society that Americans are not allowed to have pleasure" -- Alan Lomax, 1959 -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
