Wiring closet nightmares

The wiring closets at Walsh looked about like some of these, as there were cables EVERYWHERE.  And I have to tell you that reorganizing is a huge pain in the ass and is tedious work. 

Couple of tips.

Plan ahead – If you have an idea of what its supposed to look like when its done, it will make things a lot easier.
Label – If you have something that needs to be labeled, LABEL IT.  Dont try to remember where it goes.  Especially if you have a lot of wires, its helpful to label.  Use a sturdy label that is going to withstand some time.
Prepare to do it again in a year or two – Keep in mind, you're probably not the only person who is in the wiring closet and unless you're gonna be a network closet nazi (if you have time to do this, you're not busy enough), then you'll probably be back in there in a year or two fixing the mess from the last two years.

Also, these tips apply when installing a new network, which I had the opportunity to do last year.  Between my wife, my boss, and myself, we was able to finish it in about 3 weeks worth of weekends.  Keep in mind that this was pulling the wire, installing all of the RJ45 Jacks, and connecting everything to the patch panel.  Lets not forget testing each wire.  I will say this though, of the 80 some connections we put in this place, only 2 were bad.  Thats a pretty damn good percentage for someone who hadnt done a lot of wiring in about 5 years prior to this project. 

Another good tip for testing network connections.  If you dont have the fancy cable testers, just grab two laptops.  Hook one laptop up on each end and then ping the other computer.  If you get a reply, the connection is working.  If not, time to start tracing the problem.