Oliver's Blog

Blimey this was a hot one. This morning I managed to get the trunking on the cable in the garage coming from the study so that is looking a lot neater now. This afternoon I decided to attack the loft cabling. I pulled 9 cables through from the loft to the spare room, then pushed them through the hole in to the garage. Once they’d been punched in to the patch panels at either end, my cable tester informed me I’d only damaged one cable… not bad going for me! So eight cables between the garage and the loft ready to be used in the future. I also screwed the loft patch panel to the rafters and tidied up the wall cabinet in the garage, labelling all of the port so I know where they go.

I also wall mounted an 8-way surge protected power supply underneath the cabinet – I figured it would avoid taking up room inside the cabinet and also be safer for when I plug in transformers if I leave the power outside. Tasks for another include: labelling the loft patch panel, moving the server and switch to the cabinet and patching everything in, installing a wireless access point in the loft, moving my backup NAS to the loft, and sorting out those holes in the spare room.

Most of the parts have turned up now thanks to various sellers on ebay so I figured it was time to make a start. The first task was to bolt the cabinet to the garage wall. I found some decent ‘heavy duty’ wall fixings in B&Q which consist of a bolt and a metal wall plug which expands to fill the drilled hole as you tighten it up. This took some effort using a spanner instead of a screwdriver but I think it was worth it as the cabinet is definitly not going anywhere fast. 

Once the cabinet was up, I thought I’d start easy. Cables in to the study only need to go through the the wall underneath the cabinet and mean I can save the loft wiring for another day. One massive hole later and it was time to start cabling again:

And finally, after much fiddling about with the wall ports and patch panel here’s the finished result. I haven’t shown you the result in the garage yet because I’m not too happy with the tidyness of the cabling up the wall to the cabinet – I think some nice trunking is required.

Hehe got your attention.. now to lose it again. The first component of “Project: Networked House” has arrived. My 9U wall mountable data cabinet is currently sitting in my dining room and will eventually take pride of place on the wall in the garage. The idea is for the cabinet to host a patch panel with cables running up to the loft and in to the study. Also in the cabinet will be my network switch and home server. The cables in the loft will terminate on another patch panel, and as and when I get chance I’ll run network cables  inside the walls to the bedrooms when required. I also plan on sticking a Wi-Fi access point in the loft for better coverage too… maybe even CCTV cameras one day, the possibilities are endless. So far I’ve managed to drop string down the cavity from the loft behind the wall in the spare room. I’ve also drilled a hole through from the spare room in to the garage ready to pull cable through destined for the cabinet. As you can see, my first guess as to the location of the string was not right. More news on Project: Networked House as things develop.

Taybarns, for those of you who haven’t yet experienced it, is an all-you-can-eat Restaurant in Swansea (see www.taybarns.co.uk). It’s been over a year since my last visit so at the request of this weekend’s visitor Pete we decided to go back again. I made it my mission to eat from every single counter (except soup and salad of course) and took photos of each course as evidence:

Course 1: Chip Shop Without the Fish though, I had an oi-oi-savaloy, chips, beans, mushy peas and curry sauce.

Course 2: The Grill Burger in a bun, sweetcorn, and a chicken skewer. I decided to skip the sausage due to the previous course, and also chose not to double-chicken it up with the grilled chicken.

Course 3: Pizza Not that nice… tasted like cleaning fluid to be honest but one was vegetable, another bbq chicken, and the last one was spicy meat feast.

Course 4: Pasta Only a taster of three of the dishes on offer – pasta can be so filling. I went for Meatballs and Pasta, Chicken and Mushroom pasta, and Pasta Arrabiata.

Course 5: The Spice Rack Very disappointed here that they didn’t have the Indian choices on today, so I had sweet and sour chicken, stir fried veg, and some rice.

Course 6: Best of British Turkey, roast spud, stuffing, peas, carrots and gravy. Proper stuff.

Course 7: Dessert #1 Chocolate Pudding, ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Course 8: Dessert #2 Raspberry cheescake with cream.

And that’s where I had to stop I’m afraid. I couldn’t sample the profiteroles or bakewell tart, or any of the other cakes on offer for fear of having to do that all again in reverse.