Recent content by lweeks

Cisco can read the writing on the wall, and they're absolutely working to adapt and compete. See: https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/verizon-simplifies-edge-control-cisco-juniper-networks-routers Cisco has a lot of value in their NXOS/IOS heritage (and a lot of baggage to be sure!) and...

Modern fiber is "bend insensitive" -- you can wrap it around a 10mm diameter tube and it's ok. Given that you can buy a ton of cheap consumer switches on Amazon with SFP ports, including a $45 Trend switch, I don't think fiber is all that bleeding edge any more... I paid $80.00 total for 4 HPE...

Cisco at the enterprise core and edge, where you need their features and the TAC support. At the distribution and rack layers though, SDN and and "white box" networking for sure is accelerating. We're deploying VMware NSX for enterprise cloud. You pay a VMware tax instead of a Cisco tax, and...

For similar reasons, I likewise chose to go with cat5e at home. It will support 1000BASE-T as well as 2.5GBASE-T. Apparently it's ok with 5GBASE-T for shorter runs as well. For my home "backbone" between my small wall mounted network cabinet and my larger basement rack distribution switches, I...

As I wrote, ours is 18'10" square, inside dimensions, with two individual doors. That works, presuming you are very careful and store nothing along the side walls except toward the rear of the garage. As written above, you need to park with the driver doors facing the garage center. We now have...

Ideally you would use the shop vac method to **** a pull string through the conduit first. With that in, use a pulling sock, secured with tape to the cable, as mentioned in another post. It needs to be a long sock, to pull on the body of the cable, not the terminated connector ends. You would...

To a garage/workshop, it may be overkill for bandwidth considerations -- today. But if I had the opportunity to run it easily, fiber is a no brainer to a detached building, rather than wireless. That building might have an office built in it someday, or have an AP installed to extend the...

My last order shipped the next day, via UPS 2 day air. But I imagine it all depends on what's in stock. A custom cable I would expect to take longer.

I am considering getting one of these lifts this summer, and have some questions for those who now own one of them. First, how wide are the columns and the crossbar? My garage is 8 feet to the bottom of the rafters. I would need to place the crossbar between rafters, which are 22" on center...

It sounds like you will have sufficient height for an overhead door to roll above your cars. But if not. or if you're open to options, look at "around the corner" doors. These are not common in the United States, likely because we have space for larger garages here. You mainly seen them here in...

Here in Chicago, our two car garage is 18' 10" (226") square. It was built in 1927, likely had a Model T or Model A in it, on a dirt floor. Most neighbors with original houses of that vintage have a one car garage, so ours is notably luxurious. There are two doors, barn style on tracks, that...

I would not. The NEC does permit nonconductive fiber in the same conduit as current carrying conductors, with restrictions. Given the restrictions, I'd not do it unless there were no other alternative. Also check local code. Then, if you did, I would absolutely run an innerduct within the...

I ran OM4 MMO (multi-mode) fiber inside my house from my wall mounted network cabinet to my basement equipment rack. I plan to also run a pair of fiber cables to the garage when we re-pour the driveway and garage floor in the spring and I have access to run conduit. I recommend fs.com (Fiber...