[thechat] Building a New House

[Canfield, Joel]

> Never heard of Mike King nor CAT5. I believe I've heard of London, 
> however. :)

CAT5 is the obsolete ethernet cabling. You can still find CATegory 5e
(Extended) some places but most cabling sold now in the US is CAT6.

> Good idea. As far as two boxes in the kitchen, though, I could just 
> stick a hub there. AFAIK.

hub sends all traffic to all ports. as cheap as they are now, always use
a switch; reduces traffic contention and even on a home network, you'll
probably see speed increase.

you could indeed just have a single cable and a switch in any particular
location, but when that cable dies for whatever preposterous reason,
you'll really wish you'd spent the miniscule amount on more cabling as
you're trying to sort out how to run a new patch after the walls are
already closed in.

it's like buying insurance: you hope you never need it, but when you do,
it's the best thing there is