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I'm planning this at the moment for when we have some building work done, and while googling and talking to different people I found the http://swhowto.com/ (Structured Wiring HOWTO), and IMHO wiring is going to be the hardest part of the project.

Once my wiring is done, I'm going to build 4 or 5 'kiosk' type units into/onto walls in different parts of the house. Each kiosk unit will contain a mini-itx board (most likely from LinITX), small touch screen (most likely from EarthLCD.com) and will be connected to the network via gigabit ethernet utilizing the cable I layed using (partly) the mentioned HOWTO.

I also want two portable 'kiosk' type units, but I haven't researched enough to comment.

You should look into software at the same time you decide what hardware you're getting to run your setup - not before, not after.
If you're using stock, cheap stuff such as X10, lots of OSS software to run on all kinds of hardware is already available but you've got to be able to spend time configuring and diagnosing when things go wrong.

I'm no where near an expert, and I'm only really posting to give you the valuable link - but I would love to know what other people were planning so I've given you (I hope) a small insight.

Apologies for my shitty punctuation and English in general actually, I just looked over my post and it's full of andandandand but hey, I'm tired.

- phil.

An excellent book is "The Practice of System and Network Administration" by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christine Hogan. (ISBN: 0201702711) It is theory not necessarily platform specific. It is focused at unix, but can be applied in a windoze environment. I wish I had read that book years ago. It really does a good job of summarizing all the best practices. It's all the things they don't teach in school. http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/aboutbook.html There are links to reviews there. The average customer review on amazon is 4.5/5.

As far as pulling cable and doing the physical grunt work..make sure you do structured wiring otherwise you end up with a rats nest of wire. Over plan everything. Don't forget the simple stuff, have a dedicated circuit or two for the server(s) and network equipment with adequate UPS protection. Make sure the room is adequately ventialated and physically secure. Make sure you have room to grow, so when you need more equipment you have room for it or can easily make room for it.

• http://www.iec.org/online/tutorials/scs/
• http://www.swhowto.com/ (Geared more a home, but for small office would be comparable)
• http://www.hometech.com/acrobat/structured.pdf
• http://electrical.bobvila.com/Article/540.html

Really, Google is your friend: Structured Wiring How-To.

This is an awesome site, but who else wondering where this guy got the time to draw every last detail of his setup and the process in pdf? I am talking a physically accurate vector drawing of the wiring closet, other pdfs that show all the way to a detailed termination at the ports, and lots more misc diagrams. I researched structured wiring for my parent's house and he has what amounts to days of googling with cross referencing to remove misinformation, organized in perfect detail. The process is simply and clearly described in an obsessive, but organized way - the site could be published as a book. Amazing, I wonder what this guy does for a living. He is smart has lots of free time.

http://www.swhowto.com/images/ReelStand_2.JPG
http://www.swhowto.com/images/SkNetPanel.pdf
http://www.swhowto.com/images/TelCommDetails3.pdf
http://www.swhowto.com/images/VideoLoss_2xa.pdf

This is an awesome site, but who else wondering where this guy got the time to draw every last detail of his setup and the process in pdf? I am talking a physically accurate vector drawing of the wiring closet, other pdfs that show all the way to a detailed termination at the ports, and lots more misc diagrams. I researched structured wiring for my parent's house and he has what amounts to days of googling with cross referencing to remove misinformation, organized in perfect detail. The process is simply and clearly described in an obsessive, but organized way - the site could be published as a book. Amazing, I wonder what this guy does for a living. He is smart has lots of free time.

http://www.swhowto.com/images/ReelStand_2.JPG
http://www.swhowto.com/images/SkNetPanel.pdf
http://www.swhowto.com/images/TelCommDetails3.pdf
http://www.swhowto.com/images/VideoLoss_2xa.pdf

This is an awesome site, but who else wondering where this guy got the time to draw every last detail of his setup and the process in pdf? I am talking a physically accurate vector drawing of the wiring closet, other pdfs that show all the way to a detailed termination at the ports, and lots more misc diagrams. I researched structured wiring for my parent's house and he has what amounts to days of googling with cross referencing to remove misinformation, organized in perfect detail. The process is simply and clearly described in an obsessive, but organized way - the site could be published as a book. Amazing, I wonder what this guy does for a living. He is smart has lots of free time.

http://www.swhowto.com/images/ReelStand_2.JPG
http://www.swhowto.com/images/SkNetPanel.pdf
http://www.swhowto.com/images/TelCommDetails3.pdf
http://www.swhowto.com/images/VideoLoss_2xa.pdf

This is an awesome site, but who else wondering where this guy got the time to draw every last detail of his setup and the process in pdf? I am talking a physically accurate vector drawing of the wiring closet, other pdfs that show all the way to a detailed termination at the ports, and lots more misc diagrams. I researched structured wiring for my parent's house and he has what amounts to days of googling with cross referencing to remove misinformation, organized in perfect detail. The process is simply and clearly described in an obsessive, but organized way - the site could be published as a book. Amazing, I wonder what this guy does for a living. He is smart has lots of free time.

http://www.swhowto.com/images/ReelStand_2.JPG
http://www.swhowto.com/images/SkNetPanel.pdf
http://www.swhowto.com/images/TelCommDetails3.pdf
http://www.swhowto.com/images/VideoLoss_2xa.pdf

Here is a guide to wiring a house using structured wiring.

This is a great resource for many kinds of in-home wiring.