dan wells

Totally random post. So arb one wonders whether it should be read or not… Decide yourself, maybe you need this information if you’re stuck on an island with a bunch of USB cables… Anyway, lets get into it…

While making myself some fly leads for my new server in the monument I decided to have some quick harmless fun. A couple months ago the tech staff were throwing out old equipment and in that stash I found a box of one meter long USB extensions. This box had/has a bunch (+100) extensions in it.

So having some RJ45 plugs and a crimper and an exessive amount of USB extensions I wondered whether I could make an ethernet cable out of these USB cables… Figures it’s possible, even though USB only works with four wires in each cable, Ethernet 10/100mb only works with four wires out of the eight. Gigabit Ethernet and higher use all eight, and have their own special cable requirements. With a standard Cat5e cable you can run your network (Ethernet 10/100) and telephone off it.

So. After a bit of Googling and asking around (thanks Barry) using pins 1,2,3 and 6 you can get 10/100 Ethernet. So having two leads with one side RJ45 and female USB, the other RJ45 and male USB, you can plug in a standard USB extension cable between and have an Ethernet cable.

Fun times. Obviously one can NOT plug the USB port into the PC and try to run Ethernet over it, this requires some hardware intervention. And due to the nature of the USB cables which I had, they are shielded but not twisted pair, so I’m sure there are some limitations in that.

I watched Wall-E last night. I would give it a 8.75/10! Fantastic animated movie, I was laughing the whole way through =) The movie not only shows the plight of the human race having to abandon Earth, as it is too toxic to live on, but also has a very sweet romance story between two robots.

I would highly recommend this movie for anyone. But especially to any person organising their first date! You will score!

How exciting, the 102’s now have their pracs in the Hamilton Building undergrad labs… Makes it much less painful for me! Seems to be a good group so far…

Currently setting up my research blog. Watch this space for exciting new things. There will be my occasional ramblings on life and also more ramblings on my Masters Research.