Pixy and I have been playing a lot of Test Drive Unlimited recently, so we created this spreadsheet to help us make car buying decisions. Enjoy!
Dec 252008
Dec 192008
A few months ago I was tasked with cleaning and organizing one of our client’s cable racks. After a quick site visit, I understood why… This pic will explain more than words possibly could:
What a nightmare!
First things first. I made a logical diagram of the various vlan connections, and documented any special ports that were in use. Then the fun began. All cables were disconnected.
Then we reorganized the racks so that all the switches were on one side, and all the patch panels on the other.
Then we did a logical reorganization of the switches, so that all the servers and routers ports were on the same non-poe switches, and all the workstations would connecting to the poe ones.
After that, it was just a matter of cabling things up – neatly!
Et Voila! From chaos to order. 
Dec 182008
There are a few reasons you might want a serial port on your router. Maybe you’re a firmware hacker, or maybe you’re running a bleeding edge version of OpenWRT, or maybe you just want to watch the beastie boot up. Regardless of your reasons, here’s how you do it.
- First, you’ll need a 3.3v serial to USB converter. This is VERY important. If you just solder on a serial port to the router’s motherboard you will fry it as soon as you plug it in to your PC. PC serial ports output 5v, and the router can only handle 3.3v. Since you already need a voltage converter, you may as well get one that also converts to USB.
I recommend the Pololu device: http://www.robotshop.ca/pololu-usb-to-serial-adapter.html
The Pololu is currently out of stock, but this one (or any other USB -> 3.3v serial) should work just as well: http://www.robotshop.ca/sfe-ft232rl-usb-to-serial.html - Crack open your router
- Unplug the antenna leads, and pull the main router board out of the casing.
- Solder some leads (I used some wires from an old ethernet cable I had laying around) from the Pololu to the motherboard serial points. I found it easiest to put the wires thru from the top, and solder on the back.
- Attach a USB cable from the Pololu to your PCs USB port
- Plug the Antenna back in, replace the router’s motherboard in to the housing, cut a hole for the cable, and close it up.
- Install the serial driver if it’s not automagically detected by your OS
- Load up a terminal program, point it at your new serial port using 19200/8/n/1 settings
- Hit enter, and enjoy your new console!
- Clicky on one of the ads that interest you over on the right to throw me a googlequarter.
