jqj@jessica.Stanford.EDU (J Q Johnson) (10/24/90)
Many of us have twisted pair cable plants with RJ45 plugs in offices that might be any of asynch terminal connections, Localtalk/Phonenet, 10baseT, or other data services. I'd like some easy and user-comprehensible way to provide labels describing the type of service on each live outlet in a wall plate or harmonica. None of the standard cable labelling vendors (AMP, Panduit, etc.) seem to have what I want. Does anyone have good suggestions? Some sites use color-coded dots or custom text adhesive tags. The former isn't very mnemonic for the user and the latter for typical single-site quantities is pretty expensive. What I'm really looking for is a vendor who sells sheets of selfadhesive Apple logos, pictures of terminals, etc. An alternative would be a little adhesive menu that a tech could check off when she activated a plug. JQ Johnson Director of Network Services Internet: jqj@oregon.uoregon.edu University of Oregon voice: (503) 346-4394 250E Computing Center BITNET: jqj@oregon Eugene, OR 97403
kwe@buit13.bu.edu (Kent England) (10/24/90)
In article <1990Oct23.205959.5997@portia.Stanford.EDU> jqj@jessica.Stanford.EDU (J Q Johnson) writes: >...I'd like some easy and >user-comprehensible way to provide labels describing the type of >service on each live outlet in a wall plate or harmonica. None of the >standard cable labelling vendors (AMP, Panduit, etc.) seem to have what >I want. Does anyone have good suggestions? > >Some sites use color-coded dots or custom text adhesive tags. The >former isn't very mnemonic for the user and the latter for typical >single-site quantities is pretty expensive. What I'm really looking >for is a vendor who sells sheets of selfadhesive Apple logos, pictures >of terminals, etc. An alternative would be a little adhesive menu that >a tech could check off when she activated a plug. > We have used both colored dots and text adhesive tags. I'm afraid that icons won't help much either unless they are very specific. For example, does the Apple icon mean LocalTalk or EtherTalk or what? Just anticipating a problem. I was at Educom last week and there was a nice person trying to stick fuzzy little Apple logos on everyone's name tag. She seemed to have a million of them. Perhaps Apple would give you some labels? If Apple could do that, perhaps we could persuade Cabletron and Synoptics et al to make up a "10BaseT" icon (standard, please) and provide users with rolls of labels with every concentrator. Maybe cisco and Xylogics would provide icons that indicate terminal ports. Anyone think any of this might work? Get each vendor to provide standard stick-on labels with their products. Do we need an RFC to iconify all these services? :-) --Kent