Cleaning up Cables
I have been working on cleaning up the mess of cables underneath my desk the last couple of weeks. I eliminated two computers, both of them were pretty old. One was my emulator box that I used to when I wanted to re-live my childhood. It had all of my old console games on it. Those will be moving to my main Windows machine. The other computer that I got rid of was my Ubuntu system. I inherited my wife old laptop, and that has become my new Ubuntu system. Since I am down to two desktops, I also eliminated my KVM switch. I got a super small Apple bluetooth keyboard and a wireless mouse for my Mac. They sit on top of my desk, but can be moved out of the way if I don’t need them. My other keyboard and mouse sit on my keyboard try. So I eliminated two computers and a bunch of cables, but I still have four computers sitting at my desk, but two are laptops now.
To further clean of the cabling, I moved the routers, NAS, and cable modem to the closet. I just had to drill a whole in the wall and run the cables through our crawl space. I stapled some of those foam pipe insulators to the studs and ran the cables though them. It worked awesome, and looks super clean.
I should have taken some before pictures. It still looks like a lot of cables, but it’s way cleaner that it use to be.
I am going to try and build a Windows Home Server with some of the leftover parts, and I will eventually take a bunch to recycling. I still have the very first computer I built sitting in my closet. I am kinda attached to it, but a 350 MHz Pentium II isn’t really worth a thing.
Soon I will be upgrading my two CRT monitors. I am eyeing some 22″ LCDs on Newegg. Once I get them, my old janky setup should be totally awesome.
Normally I am not a pack rat, but when it come to computer parts I kinda am. I have four computer cases fill with miscellaneous junk and three old monitors in my closet right now.