I am wiring my new office myself, because I can't afford a nerd. Questions - I want a 12-16 port lan system. We will use it for a server, and also to transmit a fair amount of video feeds for security and video conferencing. Several people say to use a wireless, since it is easy. I am concerned that wireless is not secure enough, and also that it won't carry the speed I need. I have about 3000 ft of cat 6. I want to run it. Am I on the right track, or is all of that labor unneccessary? Barry
Personally I would go wired. But I would have a secure wireless router available. Just set up an access control list using mac address filtering on top of WEP security. Are you wanting to have a file server to backup to and shared files? I recently went to FRYs and was again like every year amazed at what is available now for what prince. I believed they had Terabyte NAS for around 200.00 had its own built in FTP server. Get a good quality managed switch. Phat would be better able to advise on the topology and what not. Most criminals are not savy enough but you can jam a wireless signal to a video camera easily. It is just a matter of having a signal jammer at the right freq.
I'm still not all that technical just yet... and that's probably why I prefer hard-wiring everything. The way I see it, if you're either broadcasting or receiving *ANYTHING* - you're (despite the odds) at risk of someone noticing, and possibly exploiting it. Just my $0.02
Try ebay for a cheap RJ-45 crimping tool. Or, if you have a "Harbor Freight Tools" shop nearby, check them out. Used Belkin brand crimpers start at $7.50 used on Amazon.
I bought some primo brand in a kit for about $50. The kit does everything expect provide the skill and knowledge. It is my philosophy to always buy the best when you have no idea what you are doing. That way, at least you look cool.
Or better yet : http://home.comcast.net/~dmfarrior/cat5.htm Remember yours is a straight through patch cable not a crossover cable.
I have been using this forever, Org/white Org blu/white green green/white blue brow/white brown As far as a file server goes, it just depends on how much you want to pay and what all you want it to do. Or you could just get a nice PC (dual/core lots of RAM) put in a couple of big hard drives and get a WD external TB External. This would be the cheaper way to go. You can connect the WD drive via USB2.0 and Share it, that way its fully accessible from the network. Are you setting up AD for logins and stuff? Its pretty low, but you could set up Server 03 on the PC, use it as a DHCP server and run AD on it. If you have a FQDN you can even setup DNS, you may need WINS if you are using some older hardware too. Putting your stuff on a domain is not that hard, and will make life a lot easier down the road. The MAC filtering and WEP encryption is about as good as you can do for the wireless. You can get a CISCO 'Arrow Net' access point that is good for a conference room if you have visistors, but if you are doing video conferencing I would stick to the hardwire. You can go with a cheaper access point, but I have had limited success dumbing down a wireless router into a stand alone access point. (LinkSys, Netgear, Belkin). I prefer the linksys since they are owned by Cisco.
