CablesAndKits

Happy Friday and Happy Movie Night! Grab some popcorn, your favorite candy and queue up your favorite movie!

In This Issue: Unexpected Lessons | Display Port to HDMI Converter | Difference in DVI Connectors | News to Start Your Day

---

The CK Daily – Unexpected Lessons

Happy Friday, folks! I find it interesting that sometimes we don’t know what we have until it’s gone for a little while. I’ll use a simple story to share what I mean.

I was in the middle of a video meeting yesterday afternoon when the power started flickering. It flickered on/off for about 30 seconds before it finally went out. My video meeting ended abruptly! It was odd as there wasn’t a storm passing through that would cause an outage. We went about 90 minutes without power which isn’t really that long.

In that time, there weren’t any alerts from my Ring cameras, no music playing across my Amazon Echo’s, no dings from Microsoft Teams alerts, and numerous other alerts from all the tools and gadgets we have. It was completely quiet at that time. It gave me time to focus on some tasks that I could complete without technology.

So while my first response to the loss of power was frustration, I was able to quickly pivot and use the time to focus on other things.

What lessons have you learned when something changed unexpectedly?

Have a great weekend!

Chris

---

Product Spotlights & Updates

This display port to HDMI converter will take a dual-mode Display Port signal and convert that signal to standard HDMI v1.3. This converter handles all the switching necessary to accept AC coupled signals and is handled automatically. The lead on this adapter is 6″ making it ideal for compact, tight instillations.

---

Learning Center Article – Difference in DVI Connectors

So, you are wondering what IS the difference between all the DVI connectors? There are 5 different DVI connectors. The DVI connector usually contains pins to pass the DVI-native digital video signals. In the case of dual-link systems, additional pins are provided for the second set of data signals.

---

Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• In what appears to be a miracle and ‘first time in history’, a small clinical trial has found that every single rectal cancer patient who received an experimental treatment found that their cancer had vanished.
• Adam Sandler has achieved a career record with his brand new Netflix movie. The actor, who has a $350m deal with the streaming service, appears in Hustle, a sports drama in which he plays a basketball scout. Sandler’s previous films for Netflix, including The Ridiculous 6, Sandy Wexler and Murder Mystery, were all torn apart by critics. Hustle, however, has seen Sandler receive some of the best reviews of his career to date. On Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregate site, the film has a critics score of 89 per cent, putting it in third place behind The Meyerowitz Stories and Uncut Gems.
• Dinosaurs are destined to steal the box office crown from Tom Cruise this weekend, but it’s not clear by how much. Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion” enters domestic theaters this Friday, and it will snag the majority of pricier premium format screens from Paramount and Skydance’s “Top Gun: Maverick.” Box office analysts forecast a $125 million debut for “Jurassic World,” which should easily be the top-grossing film at the box office his week.
• NASA is launching a study of UFOs as part of a new push toward high-risk, high-impact science. The space agency announced Thursday that it’s setting up an independent team to see how much information is publicly available on the matter and how much more is needed to understand the unexplained sightings. The experts will also consider how best to use all this information in the future.

Happy Donald Duck Day! Any big Donald fans out there?! Did you know that in 2002 he was declared one of the greatest cartoon characters of all time? Also, his middle name is Fauntleroy!

In This Issue: A Restless Mind | Keystone Surface Mount Box | What is Switch Stacking & Why is it Important? | News to Start Your Day

---

The CK Daily – A Restless Mind

Happy Thursday!

Some mornings it is super easy to sit down and write for this email and then there are mornings like today where I feel like my mind is blank. I thought about writing about grilling out. I thought about writing about landscaping and yard work. I thought about writing about goals. None of it felt right this morning. Maybe it’s because my mind is all over the place. Someone asked me yesterday how things were going and my response was, “Have you seen the Spongebob Squarepants meme of him cleaning 6 different things at one time? Yeah, that’s the way I feel right now mentally.”

I feel like my mind is in overdrive and trying to focus on 6-10 different things at one time, which is completely impossible. I know this is just a season and there are good parts of it too, but I think I need a vacation. Haha! It might be time to find a beach to hang out on or head down to Savannah for a long weekend.

At least it is almost Friday and the weekend. I hope each of you have a great rest of the week!

Jason

---

Product Spotlights & Updates

Give your network a makeover. These attractive boxes will perfectly blend into your home or office decor, and can hold a multitude of jacks. Unloaded 2-Position Keystone Surface Mount Box, the easiest way to install a network outlet, is perfect for office cubicles or installations where the cable is run along a baseboard. Protects and hides your network connection and mounts with 2-sided tape or screws.

---

Learning Center Article -What is Switch Stacking & Why is it Important?

There are countless ways to design a network and meet the criteria it needs to follow. Not all of these methods will be as efficient or affordable as others. That’s why network administrators are constantly learning new concepts.

Switch stacking is commonly used in high-end networking, but many small and medium businesses are missing out on the technique. Taking a minute to learn more about it could reveal a better way to run your network that saves time and money while improving network functionality.

---

Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Life for Perseverance, the plucky rover that is currently roaming the Red Planet some 132 million miles away from Earth, is quite lonely. From the desolate, dusty landscape of Jezero Crater to the gusty Martian winds, life on Mars is not for the faint of heart — or at least, for those who are extroverts. Hence, despite being a robot on a scientific research mission, researchers on NASA’s Perseverance mission team were surprised recently to discover that Perseverance had accidentally adopted a pet rock.
• Astronomers everywhere have high hopes for NASA’s James Webb telescope. It’s supposed to give us an insight into the first stars and galaxies that ever formed and into the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets. That is why NASA and its partners had engineered it to be able to withstand harsh situations, such as being bombarded by micrometeoroids flying at extremely high velocities. Between May 23rd and May 25th, a micrometeoroid that was larger than expected hit one of the telescope’s primary mirror segments.
• Microsoft is releasing an Xbox app for smart TVs, enabling consumers to stream Xbox video games even if they don’t own consoles.
• The Biden administration this week proposed new standards for its program to build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations by 2030. Officials said the proposal will help establish the groundwork for states to build charging station projects that are accessible to all drivers regardless of the location, EV brand or charging company.

Where would we be without our friends? Today is National Best Friends Day! Be sure to tell that BFF how much they mean to you and maybe do something nice for them.

In This Issue: Summer Nights | Cisco 3850 Series Switches | Wifi 6 vs Wifi 6E | News to Start Your Day

---

The CK Daily – Beating the Heat!

Good morning everyone and Happy Wednesday! I don’t know about you but I am exhausted this week. Between traveling and saying up later in the evening to soak up these beautiful summer nights, I’ve been waking up needing a full pot of coffee to get me through the day.

Even though I am exhausted I have enjoyed the time outside playing yard games, building community with neighbors, or just enjoying the calmness of the night. How are you soaking up these summer nights? What are you looking forward to now that most of us have officially kicked off the summer?

Ashley

---

Product Spotlights & Updates

The Cisco 3850 Series of switches is an industry-leading, enterprise-class series of access switches that offers superior performance, scalability, and reliability. The Catalyst 3850 Series is the first to feature a built-in wireless controller with up to 40 Gbps of capacity on 48-port models. Further, it supports up to 100 access points and 2,000 wireless clients per switching entity (or stack). These switches are stackable up to 9 members and come equipped with Cisco’s popular StackPower technology. StackPower is an innovative power-sharing and redundancy technology that allows members of the stack to share in one of two power pooling topologies.

---

Learning Center Article -Wifi 6 vs WiFi 6E

Wi-Fi is ever-present in the modern world. You need it, and you can’t get away from it, and since everyone uses it, Wi-Fi networks get very crowded. Wi-Fi 6 was designed to help alleviate this crowding, and it works. Now, Wi-Fi 6E is available, and it offers dramatic improvements in this regard.

---

Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Target, Gap, Walmart, and others that had scrambled to stock their shelves early in the pandemic are now sitting on $45 billion in inventory they need to move, up 26% from the same period last year. Walmart’s 32% jump in inventory in Q1 was “higher than we want,” CEO Doug McMillon admitted last month. What happened: In trying to solve one problem (Covid-related shortages), retailers created another (a surplus of the kinds of goods people don’t want to buy right now).
• In a ruling, a California court said last week that bees are legally fish. The new classification protects bees—and other insects—under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA), and is the culmination of a four-year legal tussle between environmentalists and agriculture groups that has major consequences for farmers in the state.
• Garys are endangered. Just 252 babies were named Gary in the US in 2021, despite it peaking as the 14th most popular name in the 1940s. So what caused the spike back then? Many attribute it to the popularity of film star Gary Cooper, who adopted the name “Gary” after his agent’s hometown of Gary, Indiana. So, in effect, all Garys are named after Gary, Indiana.
• Mortgage demand falls to the lowest level in 22 years, applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 7% for the week and were 21% lower than the same week one year ago. Refinance demand dropped 6% for the week and was down 75% year over year.

Did you know…today is VCR Day? A day to celebrate the humble Video Cassette Recorder. From its start in 1956 to the major boom in the 80’s and 90’s, where would we be without the VCR? #RIPBlockbuster

In This Issue: New Experiences | Cisco Aironet Power Injectors | Wireless vs Wired | News to Start Your Day

---

The CK Daily – Beating the Heat!

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone had a great weekend. We got to celebrate my nephew’s 8th birthday on Saturday which was so much fun. He is really into Jurassic World so that was the theme of his party… dinosaurs everywhere! There are so many qualities I love about him, but one of my favorites is that he is always up for adventures and learning/trying new things! It’s such a blast to take him out for new experiences. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to get to take him out for a few “firsts” such as his first time bowling, his first time at a baseball game, and his first time swinging a golf club at the driving range. He soaked up every minute of each of those experiences and wanted to learn as much as he could about whatever the activity was. He has a true passion for life that I can relate to and I love it! He’s a pure joy to be around and I’m excited for his 8th trip around the sun!

Rebecca

---

Product Spotlights & Updates

Power Injectors are a great budget-friendly solution to power up and connect access points that are run off of non-PoE switches with an ethernet cable. Power Injectors also remove the cumbersome and sometimes cost-prohibitive task of installing electrical outlets to power up access points. The AIR-PWRINJ4 converts 100 to 240 volts AC into 56 volts DC that can then be injected into a Cat 5 ethernet cable to power an access point.

---

Learning Center Article – Wired vs Wireless Networks: Which is better?

When it comes to designing your network, you have to make one basic decision before you get to anything else. Do you want wireless connectivity? The truth is that wired and wireless networks offer significant pros and cons when compared to each other. It’s important to have a good appreciation of those pros and cons before committing to your network design or plan.

---

Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• The family of the author whose article inspired the 1986 movie “Top Gun,” which starred Tom Cruise, is suing Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, including some profits from the Cruise sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” and to block the studio from distributing the movie or further sequels. “Maverick” has generated more than $546 million globally since its release late last month, according to data from Comscore.
• Gas prices are still on the rise and could soon reach $5 per gallon, a figure that has forced some Americans to rethink their leisure travel.The national average gas price climbed five cents Monday night into Tuesday and 10 cents since Saturday, now hitting a record $4.92 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association. Americans are paying $1.87 more than they were just a year ago, when the price was $3.05, per the AAA.
• The CDC on Monday ramped up its monkeypox alert to level 2 and encouraged people to “practice enhanced precautions” to stem the recent outbreak. The new guidance includes wearing face masks while traveling, as well as avoiding close contact with sick animals and people, especially those with skin lesions. 1,019 confirmed and suspected cases of monkeypox have so far been reported in 29 countries, according to the public health body.
• Wendy’s announced Monday that a new, much-anticipated Strawberry Frosty would be available this summer. The Strawberry Frosty will only be available for a limited time and will replace the vanilla flavor in most restaurants, as vanilla is used as a base for the strawberry flavoring.

Happy Monday! We hope you had a wonderful weekend and are geared up for week. We hope this week brings success and lots of checked off items on your to-do list.

In This Issue: Beating the Heat! | Cisco 4-Port FXO Voice Interface Card | Importance of Fiber Optic Cleaning | News to Start Your Day

---

The CK Daily – Beating the Heat!

Happy Monday!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Well… I had the opportunity to experience Top Gun: Maverick on the big IMAX screen and it did not disappoint! What an amazing film. I would even go as far to say that it is better than the original. Everything from the story, the music, and the intense action scenes were amazing. I would highly recommend watching this film on the big screen if you can!

Other than that, this week we are preparing for our summer camping trip. We had a very successful camping trip in the Spring of this year (our very first one), and now we’ve decided to take another short one in the summer. This one I’m a little bit more cautiously optimistic about, because of the heat and bugs, but I’m sure things will work out.

Do you all have any tips to beat the heat when camping? I hope you have a wonderful week!

Cris

---

Product Spotlights & Updates

The Cisco Foreign Exchange Office (FXO) interface is an RJ-11 connector that allows an analog connection to be directed at the public switched telephone network’s (PSTN’s) central office or to a station interface on a private branch exchange (PBX). The FXO sits on the switch end of the connection. It plugs directly into the line side of the switch so the switch thinks the FXO interface is a telephone.

---

Learning Center Article – Importance of Fiber Optic Cleaning

Installing fiber optic systems is not easy. It requires multiple levels of expertise in design and application, and it’s why fiber optics experts are always in high demand. While installations will vary heavily depending on the components and applications at play, there is one thing that is necessary for every installation, and it’s easy to overlook. Every system needs fiber optic cleaning to ensure that it will work properly.

---

Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Elon Musk accused Twitter of “resisting and thwarting” his right to information about fake accounts on the platform, calling it a “clear material breach” of the terms of their merger agreement in a letter to the company. “Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement,” the letter, signed by Skadden attorney Mike Ringler
• Apple’s WWDC22 is today! Are you watching?
• Last week, a man who seems to have been disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair threw a piece of cake at the Mona Lisa in Paris.
• Are you getting ready to head back into the office? Read this widely spreading article that shares how to help you pet adjust back to your back to the office life.

It’s one of the best days of the year – it’s National Donut Day! Time to swing by every donut shop in the area, snag your favorite, and indulge. What donut shop do you think makes the best donuts?

In This Issue: Summertime is here! | Surge Protector Power Strip | What are the Top Cities for IT Grads? | News to Start Your Day

---

The CK Daily – Summertime is here!

Happy Friday, folks! It’s officially summertime at our house! 😎 School is out for the summer, and my kids are enjoying the break from the school routine!

We took our summer vacation early this year as our kids got out of school about a week earlier than usual. We decided to visit San Antonio, TX. It was an incredible city to visit! We ate some great food, experienced new things, and learned a lot about the city’s history. I was most impressed with how much effort the city puts into keeping history intact, as it seems that most buildings have a story!

Now it’s time to plan a trip for next summer! Any suggestions for cities to explore?

Have a great weekend!

Chris

---

Product Spotlights & Updates

Protecting your electronics from power surges is a crucial step to keeping them alive and functioning for years to come. Power strips are not only a way to keep them safe, they are a convenient way to add additional outlets where plugs are at a premium.

This six-outlet, surge-protected power strip is perfect for both guarding electronic surges by adding additional NEMA 5-15R outlets near home entertainment systems or behind the family computer. With its LED power-on indicator, you will never have to guess if it’s on or off. The strip also houses a 15Amp circuit breaker. This device not only serves to protect and add convenience, it comes equipped with a 6 foot, heavy-duty extension cord bringing the outlets closer to the devices needing power.”

---

Learning Center Article – What are the Top Cities for IT Grads?

It’s graduation season! There are over 200,000 open jobs across the U.S. when you search for computer and information technology positions.

For those who would like to be in close proximity to their employer, we’ve analyzed 50 metros to find out which cities would be best for graduates looking for a job in computer and informational technology.

---

Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Meta is rolling out a new ‘Calls’ tab globally in its Messenger app for iOS and Android users. The new tab will keep track of each call you make or receive in the app in one place and make it easier to connect calls with one tap
• President Joe Biden is expected to visit Saudi Arabia this month as his administration tries to repair strained relations with a longtime U.S. ally and bring more oil onto the global market.
• Frontier Airlines’ parent company said it would pay a $250 million reverse breakup fee to Spirit Airlines if regulators don’t approve the planned combination of the two discount carriers for antitrust reasons.
• Walmart is building four new warehouses with a high-tech spin in hopes of delivering items to customers more quickly and growing its online business.