Patch Panel Upgrade
A few years ago, I installed a patch panel in my (parents) house. All of the phone lines in our house were run with CAT3 cable (pretty much the same as CAT5 but with fewer twists per foot, so the spec support less speed) so I am able to use them to run Ethernet throughout the house. When I first did it, I was new to this kind of thing. I've learned a lot since so I took the time to completely redo it and make everything look a little nicer.
Old Setup
Here is some pictures of the old setup:
Kind of a mess.
and the mess of coax...
Pictured above is a Leviton Media Patch Panel kit that includes a traditional phone line distribution system, CAT5 patch panels and a coax splitter (that I never used). The idea is that you can patch either a phone line or ethernet cord to any jack in the house. All of the jacks in the house should be Ethernet, that way allowing either phone or Ethernet to be plugged in. Just make sure you don't plug an Ethernet device into a jack that is patch to the phone distributor! The phone line has voltage that could potentially damage an Ethernet device.
New Setup
The Leviton panel was great for a while, but as I am getting more and more cables to patch (we put an addition on our house last year and added a lot more Ethernet) it is getting to be more inconvenient. The 6-port patch modules are expensive and kind of tacky if you ask me. I decided I wanted to replace the whole thing with more of a traditional patch panel.
Enter Monoprice.com. Monoprice is an amazing place where you can get any kind of cables, adapters, home theater/home networking/home video supplies for CHEAP! You know that 25 foot HDMI cable you bought for $100 at BestBuy? Same thing on Monoprice for only $15.
I found a new 24-port CAT5e patch panel on Monoprice for about $17. You cannot beat that. After sitting on the shelf for a few months due to lack of time to install it, here it is with a new hole cut in the board:
Jigsaws are awesome, it fit on the first try.
Notice that I added a new board for the coax "tree". I'm very glad I did that, now it's all out of the way. One thing I like a lot more about this style of patch panel is that it hides all of the wires behind the board. Ends up looking a lot cleaner.
Next I have to wire everything up, mount the new wireless router as well as the modem, and install the new phone distributor. I didn't really take any intermediate pictures for this part, so here are some pictures after it is all finished!
Finished product
Another view
Phone "distributor"
The phone "distributor" is simply a splitter that you can buy at Radioshack or Lowes. It's just plugged into the Cable modem (Mediacom's phone service is through the cable modem) and it splits it into 5 ports. If you need more than 5 phone jacks in your house, just daisy chain another splitter. Now honestly, I'd much rather just drop the phone service. Who needs phone service when everyone in the house has cell phones? All it does is give telemarketers a way to reach you. But seeing as this isn't my house I can't make that decision. If a home phone line is necessary, I'd also suggest not buying through Mediacom or your cable company and just getting a cheap VoIP service like Vonage or Skype. Then buy Ethernet phones and you wouldn't have to worry about legacy phone lines at all.
View with Server on bottom, UPS and tools on the shelf, and panel.
You may notice the switches/routers on the right hand side and wonder what they are/why there are three. The black one on the bottom is an 8-port Gigabit switch and the two on top are routers/wifi routers with 4-port switches in them. Ideally I would get a 16-port Gigabit switch and do away with those three individual boxes, but it's just not worth the money when I already have something that works. the two older routers on top are not Gigabit, and I'm only using the switch function of them not the router. The new white wireless-N Gigabit router does all the routing and the rest is just LAN switch ports.
Well that's about it. I'm planning on selling the old Leviton panel, if you're interested let me know. Still works great, I just needed more patch panel ports.
Max
DIY Home Entertainment System Remote
I love DIY projects, they make me go. This weekend I was thirsty for a new project, and now I shall share it with you.
The entertainment system in the basement consists of a projector, an Xbox 360, my pro sound system, and a computer. Everything works nicely, except the computer which is somewhat annoying. You see I don't have a wireless keyboard, and I'm not really into the idea of spending near $100 on a wireless keyboard right now. I do have a wireless mouse... but even that is annoying to work with on the couch surface or the wooden coffee table without a mouse pad.
So today I decided to make it more accessible and less cluttered/annoying.
I downloaded the Air Mouse App on my iPod Touch which only cost $1.99. It allows me to control the cursor on the computer from my iPod by using it like a trackpad, or even a regular mouse! It uses the accelerometer to sense when you move the iPod just like you would a normal mouse, and makes the cursor move. Of course the requires a wireless network, but I would assume that you have that. (and it better have a clever SSID too!) Sure, there are free Apps that give you this functionality. But none of the free apps also allow you to use the keyboard also! It even has a scroll wheel!
So now I have a $1.99 wireless keyboard and mouse that conveniently is with me at all times. But that's not the end of the list of features for Air Mouse! It also has controls for media players such as iTunes, VLC Media Player, Windows Media Player, and Media Center, browsing controls for Safari, IE and Firefox, and it allows you to define a set of custom function keys. These features are especially great for this use because with the computer I am usually using a web browser, iTunes or VLC.
Air Mouse Trackpad with keyboard overlay.
Air Mouse Trackpad with media controller. (Keyboard minimized)
Air Mouse Trackpad landscape mode.
You're probably wondering how this all works with the computer and such over the network. Well don't worry, I'll explain that now. All you need to do is browse to www.mobileairmouse.com and download the free AirMouse Server application. Once you have that installed, you just need to click on the gears in the upper left hand corner on your iPod touch (^look above!) and it will automatically detect the computer with the server software on it. Click on that computer, and you're ready to go! You can use Air Mouse with as many computers as you want, you just need to download the server software on each computer you plan on using Air Mouse on.
Okay, so maybe now you're thinking, "Cool Max, I've got this wireless mouse, keyboard, media controller and web browsing controller in my hand. But I still can't turn the computer on remotely." That's true. Air Mouse does not have any functionality to allow you to turn on a computer. But something else does!
Using Wake On Lan (WOL) technology, we can turn the computer on with an iPod Touch or iPhone! If your motherboard and BIOS support WOL, then all you need to do is enable it in your BIOS. Most computers these days are compatible with WOL, especially if they have Ethernet prts built into the motherboard. The computer I'm using it on was made in year 2000, and has this capability.
So once you've enabled WOL in your BIOS, all you need is the application on your Apple product. There were many to choose from, but I decided to go with "iNet WOL." I liked it because it allowed you to search for computers rather than typing in MAC addresses manually. This one only cost $.99, too. Now I know you might be thinking, "Man, I just spent $1.99 on Air Mouse and now you're telling me to spend another $.99 on this!?" Hey. Money isn't happiness, and it's only $2.98 for some pretty cool functionality. And that's nothing compared to what you paid to get your iPod Touch or iPhone.
Now that you've spent your life savings and gotten the App, you're ready to add the computer and turn it on. Go ahead and click the "+" icon in the upper right hand corner, and then click "Search for network devices". Choose your computer, and click the button called "Add Devices". Now go back to the home screen, and you're ready to go. As soon as you press the button with your computer's name on it, it should fire up! Mine seriously takes less than half a second to respond, it seems instantaneous.
Well, that's it! After some time and money we've got more cool uses for the iPod Touch and iPhone. I know I will find this useful and I hope you do too! Maybe it will cause you to hook a computer up to your new 1080p television set in your living room?
Whatever you do, have fun!
Max