On the Wednesday before Christmas, here I am, sitting in class, the stress of finals looming over my head.  Yet four days away is a day reserved for family, friends, and happiness.  I, like so many others, cannot wait for that day.

It is said that I am hard to shop for, and I guess that is possibly true from a perspective.  But I, like most nerds (geeks, losers, whatever you want to call the class I belong to), am so easily amused by the simplest things, it really isn’t that hard to shop for me.  Get me a $5 light-up ball, and I will be entertained for hours on end - I mean, it’s something to get away from programming or tweaking something.  Chances are, if it uses electricity, I will find a way to entertain myself with it.  But, since my family is not the most technologically inclined, I have to make wish lists of the exact items I would like and then e-mail my parents links.  It’s either that or clothes, and heaven forbid a nerd get clothes for Christmas!

One of the things I asked for this year was a network wiring kit from geeks.com.  It consists of 300 feet of Cat 5e wire, an RJ-45 crimper, and 30 RJ-45 connectors.  Those outside of the tech world would hear this and go out and buy an extension cord, scissors, and duct tape.  So, I asked my Aunt for this for Christmas.
When I explained to her what I wanted, her reply was simple (I edited this to keep it PG-13):

“Tyler, why in the hell do you want a cable for Christmas?”

In her mind, this is nothing more than an extension cord of sorts, but to someone like me, it is worth more than $300 in clothes.  Cat 5e wire, after all, is the heart of your network. 

We recently moved into a new house, in which I had the electrician wire three rooms with RJ-45 jacks run them to a central furnace room downstairs.  In the furnace room, he installed three jacks on top of each other, and there is a separate jack in each of the three rooms.  I have the router, modem, and a computer in my room, my parents have a computer upstairs, and there is a spare network jack behind our TV in the family room in case I have friends over for some Xbox action.  In the furnace room, I run three Cat 5s to a switch that controls the traffic to all three rooms.

When you take a look at that setup, it requires a lot of separate Cat 5 cables to run as compared to a single router running three cables off of it to two adjacent rooms.  The total distance in the furnace room from the jack to the switch is less than three feet, as is the distance from the computer to the jack upstairs, and the jack to router in my room.  No big deal, I’ll just buy some short Cat 5s at Wal-Mart, right?

Wrong.  The shortest cable available at Wal-Mart is 14 feet long and costs $10.  When you need 4 cables, which adds up to be quite a bit of money for a bunch more cable than I need.  So, next idea: I will just order four short cables off of Newegg when I get home.

Another bad idea.  Has anyone ever looked at the prices of cables on Newegg?  I love the place, but for gosh sakes, $5 shipping per cable for a cable that costs less than two dollars?  Its 3 feet long, folks - I ordered a motherboard earlier this week, and the shipping was $2.50!  Don’t tell me that 3 feet of cable weighs more or takes up more room than a motherboard, and that just isn’t possible.

So, finally, out of ideas, I look to the guys on IRC for their always-helpful insight.  Sure enough, they come through again: 300 feet of cable, with a crimper, and connectors that I can cut to whatever lengths I want and make them myself!  How much does this kind of thing cost - $40, $50, $60?  Wrong again!  $27.99!

Another gift this year really didn’t come from my parents (although they are paying for it), is a deal from Cox Communications.  While on the phone with tech support yesterday getting my new setup connected to their service, he tells me they have a special on their premier package of High Speed Internet - only $6 more than we were paying, and recently upgraded speed to 9 Mbps down, and 1 Mbps up.  When I heard the guy tell me this, I almost accepted it without asking my parents.  This over doubles the connection speed, and only costs $6 more.

Overall, I’m going to be a very happy nerd this Christmas.

I hope that all my readers get that wonderful tech gadget(s) they asked Santa for this year, be it a new motherboard, a video card, more RAM, speakers, a sound card, or just some simple network cable.  Good luck!

In closing, I’d like to wish every one of my readers a safe and happy holiday season, in whatever you celebrate.  Specifically, I’d like to thank all of you for your continued support of this wonderful site, and especially those guys who have helped me get my stuff together over the last two years.  Thank you all for your contributions and reading this column.

If anyone has any suggestions for topic ideas, comments regarding the column, or questions, we’re opening our mailboxes to feedback, as always.  We’re working hard to bring you what you want to see, so please help us in determining it.  Force’s box is editor@pcmech.com and if you have personal questions for me, feel free to send them to kstatefan40@yahoo.com

May Santa be with You!  Merry Christmas!