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Building A (Serious) Home Network From Scratch

Posted by timothy on from the bolts-in-the-floor dept.

Casey Lang-Vie writes "THG are running an article that outlines how to build a home network from scratch. I wish I'd read this before I attempted - now I have a few (ok, 8) unsightly holes in my wall." This is the type of network that encourages home ownership rather than rental.

4 of 420 comments (clear)

  1. He hired a Contractor! by dokebi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's the point of putting an article together if you just hire some guys to do it for you? Is choosing the cable type and faceplate style that big of a deal? That's like saying "I wrote this article about building a computer from scratch, and we just asked Dell to do it for us. Oh, btw, I asked them to use grey face plates instead of the black one."

    --
    In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
  2. an article not worth reading by drhannibal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I made the mistake of reading this entire article. I recommend to all those who entertain the idea skip it. Important questions such as cat6 vs. 5e vs wireless a/b/g aren't given sufficient coverage. Instead it reads like an advertisement for some lame-o contractor. Few people build a home network like this. The guy tells you how to hire a contractor to do the hole punching for you! This isnt the slashdot way: we like punching our own holes in the walls and crawling around in attics and toiling in insulation. Sorry THG, usually your articles have at least marginal worth, this one was a real loser. From someone who has installed their own (highly pleasing, if you know what i mean) home network, dont read this article. Cover your eyes. If you want the advice this article gives you, I can summarize in one sentence. Hire a contractor. On the other hand, if you read slashdot, go to fry's, buy 1000m of cat5/e and a few face plates, get out the hammer and the pocket knife and start doing it big...

  3. Re:Wireless... by drwtsn32 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The choice to implement security AFTER there is a problem is a very poor choice IMO.

  4. Re:Wireless... by Osty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I had something worth protecting, I would agree. But if someone sinister really wants to attack my computer while I'm in the middle of a mad game of scrabble with my Wife...then I'll fix whatever they broke and take the needed security precautions.

    Bad call, for two reasons. First, security is not just to protect your stuff worth protecting. Your network itself is a valuable resource to hackers. Second, you can't always just "fix whatever they broke", because you don't know what they left behind. That's why even "white hat" hackers are bad when they go breaking into other people's computers -- they really may not have done anything but added a text file saying "You have been hax0red, here's how and what to fix", but you don't know that's all they did.


    This lax attitude towards security is why there are so many DDoS networks out there built from the computers of ignorant cable and DSL users.