So – we’ve now moved in, the boxes are (mostly) unpacked – I’ve even managed to organise the garage enough to fit the HondaBus into it (who knows, maybe being an internal garage with light, heat and power may see the Carputer get installed finally?).
So – with the vitals out of the way (and by vitals, I mean the stuff my Wife and kids need, not what *I* consider vital), it’s time to settle in and get the technology humming (and no – that doesn’t mean the Weather Station is back up yet 🙁 )
To recap, the Interwebs have gone from this:
to this:
But (as we found out 30 minutes before the All Blacks test on the first Saturday in the house), that’s not all – the Sky dish is connected, but not to any known cable in the house, the UHF is connected, but orphaned via a hole in the garage wall – and don’t even get me started on the gel crimp frenzy that is the phone cabling… We have 2 working phone ports – and only one of those will connect to the DSL service, of course THAT port in in the boys room, so we’ve currently got an old school ‘phone’ extension cable running from their room through to the home office.
So, in summary – I’m either looking for an installer (or two – surprisingly hard to find via web search without a word of mouth recommendation!) or will be tackling (at the very least) the following work via the good old Kiwi DIY Self Install:
- UHF / Sat: Connected and split 4 ways in ceiling space, routed to Lounge, Master Bedroom, Downstairs Rumpus and Office
- Phone Patching: Retain Master Bedroom + Shift Boys (working) port to Office for DSL
- Network: Basically, all remaining phone ports could be converted to wired network either via re terminating with RJ45 or (where the existing cables are a mess) using existing as a draw wire to pull fresh cat 5. This would give a minimum of:
- Lounge x2 (1 for IR)
- Master Bed x1
- Downstairs Rumpus x1
- Office x 4 (min)
The options then are terminating all network cables centrally in the garage and patching from there (fed from 1 or 2 in the office) or pulling a loom into the office.
From what I’ve learned from our previous house, I think the central loom in the garage will suit best as it’s out of the way and allows noisier / hotter equipment to be located away from the living spaces.
Of course, the above is my minimum requirements, I’ve also planned an optimum structure – but me and Visio will need to spend some quality time together before I can post up that plan…
So Windows 7 is now released to manufacturing (RTM for you acronym junkies out there) and this is the last time I’ll need to be installing the operating system before it appears in the shops. During the Beta, aside from a few minor issues with hibernate, Windows 7 has been wonderfully stable and, I must say I’m impressed by the new Media Center interface (EngadgetHD have a look at it here).
I’ve just finished reading 
Well, it’s taken a week – but the 
