September 2008 Archives

Fri Sep 19 16:19:27 CEST 2008

Moving

Readers of my blog will want to update their URLs. As of right now, I've moved my blog to http://blog.fortytwo.ch/.


Posted by cmot | Permanent Link | Categories: Tech

Fri Sep 19 10:55:13 CEST 2008

HAL, D-Bus, udev, DeviceKit, Gstreamer, Phonon, Solid, Nepomuk, Sydney...

Reading LWN's coverage of the Linux Plumbers Converence, it occured to me that while I as somewhat experienced Linux user may know many of the components of a modern Linux desktop system, technically interested but less experienced users may have no idea what goes where. So here is a very rough high-level introduction to the “under the hood” components I could think of. As you can see there are many gaps in my knowledge, too...


Posted by cmot | Permanent Link | Categories: Tech

Sat Sep 13 17:41:13 CEST 2008

Meme time

I see Martin is proud to have started this...

altfrangg, calvados, faegnaescht, gazpacho, gin, gluggsi, lumpesammler, papillon, syydelaervli, tonic, zbasel

If you can guess this, you're invited to gatecrash anytime. If you can guess this and don't live close to me (or did at some time in the past, and didn't use Google), I'd be curious to know how...


Posted by cmot | Permanent Link | Categories: Debian, Funny, Sad, Ironic, ...

Fri Sep 12 11:34:26 CEST 2008

25 pair telco cable color scheme

I had to rewire a DSL concentrator (thunderstorm blew one of the ports...) today. The concentrator has two fan-out cables (input, output) with 25 RJ-11 connectors, color coded, so I had to find the colors of the remaining non-defective ports (there are 12 ports on this concentrator, the other 13 pairs are not connected. Presumably there isn't a 12 pair cable.) Google shows tons of references to the apparently standard 25 pair color code (first pair is white/blue), but unfortunately “my” cable had a light blue/light yellow first pair with most other pairs made up of cables with a base color and a colored stripe. I couldn't find the color chart on the Internet.

Finally, the strange thought of RTFM entered my mind (and I even found the manual of the concentrator), and found that the importer has added a color chart leaflet to it; the cable is referred to as a “Telco50” cable. So here we go:

PairFirst WireSecond Wire
1redred — white
2yellowyellow — black
3greengreen — white
4blueblue — white
5brownbrown — white
6blackblack — white
7purplepurple — white
8orangeorange — white
9light greengreen — black
10blue — blackpurple — black
11light blue — blacklight blue — red
12light green — greenlight green — blue
13light green — blacklight green — red
14light blue — bluelight blue — green
15light yellow — redlight yellow — black
16light yellow — greenlight yellow — blue
17graygray — black
18gray — greengray — red
19red — blacklight red
20light red — bluelight red — green
21light red — blacklight red — red
12whiteorange — black
13white — bluewhite — green
24white — redwhite — black
25light bluelight yellow

(Actually, on the DSL concentrator here this order is listed as “pin” numbers while the 12 ports are assigned in reverse order, starting at 25. The concentrator is a Zyxel VES-1012 and is not in production anymore.)


Posted by cmot | Permanent Link | Categories: Tech