How geeky is that?

What's geekier — going online to look for instructions on how to put together a Cat-5 twisted-pair cable, or actually finding them?

A few months back, Jerry Pournelle was sounding off at a LASFS meeting. Several people had asked him what a router is, and why someone might want one.

Rather than answer the same question a dozen times, he stood before the meeting and answered it in one swell foop. Those who were interested listened. Those who were definitely not interested had a chance for a bathroom break. Many who didn't know they were interested decided they were interested.

When I got my new computer and DSL set-up, I decided I'd also buy a router to use as a hardware firewall. It also lets my laptop talk to my desktop. (Though I still haven't figured out why the desktop refuses to recognize the laptop.)

I've been limping along with a length of cable running down the hallway form my bedroom office to my living room. (The office is actually a "bonus room" off of the bedroom.) Last weekend, I decided to take matters in hand and clean up the mess before I tripped over it and did serious damage to stuff I might want to keep.

I drilled two holes in the wall, one next to the router, and one next to the cable, phone, and electrical outlet. Tonight, I finished wiring the cables to some modular jacks, and using leftover cable to make short connectors to go between the router and the jack, and between the jack and whatever else someone might want to plug in.

And as it happens, I've got three more slots on the router, so I could run three more cables. Maybe for form, I should run a connection into the library, which used to be a second bedroom.