It has been a busy two weeks! At this point we have seven installs done, one customer who is doing his own install and approximately eight more installs to go in the first set. I currently have four installs scheduled for this week. Depending on they go I might be able to get a few more done but I'm finding that I would rather do a few less each week and do them to my own satisfaction than hurry through them!

I've had a saying for many years, "There ain't no substitute for doin' it." That certainly has proven true this week! It's amazing how much you learn once you move out of the theoretical into the experiential.

I never realized how interesting it would be to put ends on an ethernet cable! First you have to get a clean end on the cable, then you have to strip it without nicking any of the wires, then you have to separate all the pairs and get them straightened out in the proper sequence, then you have to square them off, then you have to carefully jam them into the connector and make sure that every little wire is in the right slot and then you have to crimp it hard and hope that the crimp actually works.

I've made several crimps this week that I clipped off and redid. Today I ordered a continuity tester because I'm tired of guessing whether or not the end it good. (Seems like there should be a better way to do this.)

Aside from that and some odd configurations on customers' computers, it seems to be going really well. We've made connections to customers that I was almost certain we wouldn't make. And, so far, everyone seems pleased with the service.

When things settled down a bit. I'll be  back with another article!