Home networking, wiring my house

I have been wanting to pull Ethernet cables in my house, just the ground floor for now, wiring the second story will be more challenging. The Ethernet cable will go inside the wall and through the crawlspace.

I bought 1000 ft of Cat5e solid copper cable, it comes with a cable tester, a set of RJ45 plug, and a crimper. Next, I got myself a punchdown tool, a cable cutter, a set of wall face plates and set of wall plugs. I made my plan, cut the cables, test the cables for connectivity, and give the cable color codes.

Now the main problem is drilling inside the wall, my original plan was to drill from the crawl space up inside the wall to the cable junction box. I just had to make sure I made no mistake with my calculation, this was my biggest challenge, until I discovered the flexible drill bit.

Using this flexible drill bit, a 56 inches long drill, I was able to drill down from my cable junction box to my crawlspace. It was a time saver. All cables were pulled from the garage to three different junction boxes. The cables were pulled from the crawlspace using the drill without any problem. If you have never seen it, do a search for 'flexible drill bit', youtube has one video that shows how awesome this tool is. It is available at Lowe's or Home Depot.

After the cables were set, I terminated the cables, and then I tested the cables again for connectivity, using really long patch cables. I discovered that several wires were not connected properly, a cable tester is a must.

Now, I can watch my videos store in my Vista machine in my home office using XBox 360 from my living room. Before, I used wireless G network, but the Microwave interfered with the signal badly. Every time I turned on the Microwave, XBox lost its connection with the Media Center. Now I can enjoy microwaved popcorn while watching a video....