Cable ManagementIf there's one thing that drives me nuts about my home office, it's the wires. I need a cable management system in the worst way. While I have wireless hub to support the laptop, the wired network is a tangled mess. It all starts with the cable-modem. From there, it's a simple run through the AT&T CallVantage VOIP box and into the Linksys router. But that's where the cable management situation gets completely out of hand ... Like a spiderweb, Ethernet cable sprouts from the router to the PC, the iMac, the HP LaserJet, and the AirPort. It's a small network, right? It should be simple. But right now, it's just nuts. And then there's the power line situation. My UPS looks like a box of spaghetti from high-tech hell. Needless to say, cable management hasn't been high on my list of priorities here at ranchero indebto. I keep meaning to do something about it, but the task continues to get back burnered. I stopped in a Staples store to do some Christmas shopping today. (Don't laugh, I have one or two geeky in-laws, too.) As I was wandering the aisles, looking for inspiration, I found myself staring at a entire section of cool cable management solutions. I saw both the familiar and the unfamiliar. Sure, there were plenty of good old plastic cable ties, but they've never struck me as being the right solution for my office. (I'm a big fan of cable ties for securing soccer nets and deer fence, but that's another story.)
There was one cable management product I really dug--a reusable velcro-like wrap thingie. I think there was more than one brand available, but the brand I do remember is Belkin. Their cable ties (part # F8B024) are eight inches long and come in six colors (red, green, blue, black, yellow, and gray). Belkin's plastic fold-up Hideaway Cord Concealer (part # F8B015) looked interesting, too. But I didn't buy any ... as an alarm went off in the back of my head. (The sound of the alarm was quite a shock for the shoppers in the surrounding aisles, lemmetellya.) I've always liked the big plastic slitted cable snakes--they're easy to stuff full of wires. As I sat down to write this article, the message from the back of my head became clearer. "Look in the bottom desk drawer," said the SMS from my brain. I remembered that I had bought two packages of cable management snakes while on an excursion at IKEA, months back. And there they were ... sitting at the back of the drawer. While there's no better price for a cable management solution than free, I have a feeling that these babies are just a start.
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