CablesAndKits Blog

Happy Thursday & Happy National Visit Your Relatives Day! It’s the perfect day to make a stop on the way home from work to see your relatives or give your relatives who aren’t close to you a call.

In This Issue: Cheers to Another Year! | CAT6A Slim Snagless Booted Ethernet Patch Cable | Wiring Ethernet Patch Panels | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – Cheers to Another Year!

Good Morning!

I hope everyone has had an amazing week!

This week was my 1 year anniversary at CK! It feels like it was yesterday that I walked into the doors of our office. I remember being nervous but was quickly relieved by the warm greetings I received, as well as the amazing culture!

As I enter my second year, I can’t help but feel excited for what’s to come. This milestone isn’t the end of the road, but just the beginning of an exciting new chapter. I’m ready to take on some more challenges, enhance my skills, and make a real impact here. The journey has been wonderful so far and I can’t wait to see where it takes me next. I am truly honored to be a part of this team.

Here’s to year 2!

Joi

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Product Spotlights & Updates

This 5ft Cat6a Blue Slim Ethernet Patch Cable is perfect for installations that are in a tight spot, and require a thinner cable than the typical thick Cat6a cable. Cat6a is the fastest Ethernet cable available on the market that meets TIA/EIA standards. The 500 Mhz performance is double that of Category 6 and five times the bandwidth capacity of Category 5e.

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Learning Center Article – Wiring Ethernet Patch Panels

When you’re building a network, it’s often ideal to use a patch panel to direct cables and organize long Ethernet runs — especially if they go through walls, floors, and/or ceilings. Patch panels make cable management and network organization very easy over long periods of time, but you’ll need to wire the panels in order to put them into your network.

Not to worry, this guide will walk you through the whole process.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Ukraine’s capital Kyiv has been attacked from the air by Russia for the ninth time this month.
  
• Montana has become the first state to ban the popular social media app TikTok. Gov. Greg Gianforte signed Senate Bill 419 on Wednesday, saying he wants to protect the state’s residents’ private information from being compromised.
• Bankrupt rocket company Virgin Orbit received a $17 million “stalking horse” bid for its modified 747 carrier jet and other aircraft assets.
• Virgin Galactic is targeting as early as May 25 for the launch of its next spaceflight. The Unity 25 mission marks both the company’s first in nearly two years since flying founder Sir Richard Branson and its planned last step before beginning commercial service.

Happy Wednesday! We’ve successfully made it half way through the week. Hang in there – Friday is just around the corner!

In This Issue: 99 Years of Life | Cisco 6500 8-Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet Module | Routers vs. Modems | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – 99 Years of Life

Good morning CK Family!

What a week it has been so far. At the end of last week, I was on the road traveling to a funeral for my husband’s sweet great-grandmother. I was so grateful to have had to opportunity to get to know her over the past several years. The funeral was such a sweet celebration of her 99 years of life. So many community members came to share memories of her and showered the family in prayers. It was incredible!

This weekend, my husband and I also gave our hand at painting and successfully painted the nursery in our home! It took us about 3 hours, but I have to say, it turned out pretty great! We were pretty nervous because one of the colors we were painting was a super dark olive green and we didn’t want to hit the ceiling or any of the other walls, but all turned out well. Our next step is to decorate and begin setting up before our little man decides to make his appearance.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week!

Ashley

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Product Spotlights & Updates

Maximize your bandwidth capacities with the Cisco 6500 8-Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet Module, WS-X6708-10G-3C. For environments that require significant bandwidth use, this module is designed to extend networking capabilities for up to eight devices. With 10 Gbps per port, you can scale confidently up to 80 Gbps, giving you the bandwidth you need to handle your business.

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Learning Center Article – Routers vs Modems

When you’re building a network, there are a few essential components that show up in every design, especially if this network accesses the internet.
Somewhere along the line, you have to attach a modem. It’s essential for internet connectivity. Assuming you use more than one device with this network, you probably also need a router. Each of these devices is essential, and they are often combined together into a single networking device.
But, what are they really doing? What are the key differences between modems and routers?

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Kraft Heinz is launching a customizable sauce dispenser with more than 200 possible combinations for restaurants.
• The combined WWE-UFC will be called TKO Group Holdings. The new sports entertainment company will trade publicly on the New York Stock Exchange.
• The World Meteorological Organization has reported that global temperatures are likely to exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in human history.
• Russia appears to be doubling down on its efforts to capture Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, with Ukraine’s armed forces saying Wednesday that Russian forces continue to concentrate their efforts on capturing the besieged town and nearby areas around Lyman, Avdiivka, and Marinka.

Happy Tuesday & Happy National Check Your Wipers Day! With all the rain we’ve had lately, today is a good reminder to sure you’re wipers are still providing you with optimum visibility!

In This Issue: Praising God for Progress | AC Power Cord | Tips for Maintaining Your Server | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – Praising God for Progress

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone had a great weekend and a Happy Mother’s Day! We had a nice, lowkey weekend with my mom which was very enjoyable!

Tonight I’m getting to celebrate another important mom in my life, Mrs. Debbie who is the mother of 2 of my best friends. Several months ago, I wrote about how she had been diagnosed with cancer and things weren’t really looking good. Her prognosis wasn’t good and the doctors were pretty pessimistic about how much time they thought she had left. We had a dinner with a bunch of family friends at her house in February that felt very bittersweet as there was a real sense that time with her was short.

Since then, she has been receiving what I believe is an experimental treatment that has actually been working! She’s had a series of very encouraging scans and reports which feels absolutely miraculous! We’re having another dinner at her house tonight and the mood feels far more upbeat this time around! We’re definitely praying that things continue to move in the right direction for her and are thanking God for the progress that has been made so far!

Rebecca

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Product Spotlights & Updates

For cloud operations large and small, the Meraki MS120-48LP-HW is here to make management a breeze. Expertly designed for branch and campus deployments alike, this powerful access switch provides unmatched granular visibility into all of your connections and configurations. This model offers powerful tools like built-in remote diagnostics, role-based administration, Virtual Stacking, and firmware upgrades straight from the Meraki cloud.

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Learning Center Article – Tips for Maintaining Your Server

Servers are powerful in every sense of the word, in fact, they can hum for 24 hours a day, seven days a week without having any issues. However, their efficiency can be reduced drastically or even cut short completely if they are deprived of proper maintenance. You can avert server failure or a major disaster by simply having a regular check-up on them. Hiring a server management solution is the easiest and worry-free way to go. However, if you choose to do it yourself, here are a few maintenance tips to follow.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Microsoft Windows users are now able to send texts from their iPhones through their desktops, allowing users to essentially operate their phones from their PCs.
• The National Institutes of Health is enrolling patients in an early stage clinical trial to test a universal flu vaccine based on mRNA technology.
• Kathy Lueders, the most recent top human spaceflight official at NASA, has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX after retiring from the agency. 
• Tomorrow.io recently launched Tomorrow-R1, which it it claims is the world’s first commercially built weather-radar satellite.

Happy Monday! We hope you had a wonderful weekend relaxing and spending time celebrating all the moms in your life. Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

In This Issue: Celebrating Moms | Cisco Meraki Cloud Managed Switch | Your Guide to Cisco Catalyst Switches | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – Celebrating Moms

Happy Monday,

I hope you had a great weekend! This weekend was all about celebrating mothers on my side of the family. I spent time with my mother early on Saturday and she was happy to spend time with her grandkids and all of the family. On Sunday we spent the day after church with my mother-in-law where we had a cookout, and everyone enjoyed some grilled steaks. We ate so much that we crashed afterward, and all took naps.

I surprised my wife with a message from Kevin Sorbo (you may know him from the 1990s series Hercules or from Andromeda, more recently God’s Not Dead and others). My wife is a huge fan of Hercules and was very surprised and delighted by the message. There’s a site called memmo.me where you can book celebrities to give personalized video messages I stumbled upon late last week.

I am grateful for all the mothers out there who make our world a better place. Thank you to all the moms who make the world a better place! I hope you have a great day and that the week brings you joy and success!

Cris

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Product Spotlights & Updates

For cloud operations large and small, the Meraki MS120-48LP-HW is here to make management a breeze. Expertly designed for branch and campus deployments alike, this powerful access switch provides unmatched granular visibility into all of your connections and configurations. This model offers powerful tools like built-in remote diagnostics, role-based administration, Virtual Stacking, and firmware upgrades straight from the Meraki cloud.

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Learning Center Article – Your Guide to Cisco Catalyst Switches

A network is only as effective as its weakest link. When you have heavy demands, you need good options to meet and exceed those demands. Cisco has been providing top-quality options for every network design for decades. This overview will introduce you to some of the most common, versatile, and widely-used switches Cisco has to offer.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Fanatics agreed to buy the U.S. operations of sports betting company PointsBet. The deal values the assets at about $150 million.
• Dan Snyder agreed to sell the Washington Commanders to a consortium led by Josh Harris, the owner of the NBA’s Sixers and the NHL’s Devils.
• Americans in most states will no longer receive Covid exposure notifications on their smartphones. Nearly 30 states have used a system developed by Apple and Google to alert iOS or Android users when they’ve been exposed to the coronavirus. 
• Amazon is focusing on using artificial intelligence to speed up deliveries — by minimizing the distance between its products and customers. Amazon has been focusing on a so-called “regionalization” effort to ship products to customers from warehouses closest to them rather than from another part of the country.

Happy Friday! This weekend we get to celebrate Mother’s Day—the one day of the year when we all put on our best behavior and treat our moms like royalty. But let’s be honest, the other 364 days we’re back to our usual shenanigans. So on this special day, let’s give our moms a break and let them relax!

In This Issue: Core Value: Building Processes | Meraki 4/7 dBi Dual-Band Omni Antenna | All about Aruba 2530 Switches| News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – Core Value: Building Processes

Happy Friday, folks! I will be continuing our series covering the Core Values of CablesAndKits. Our third core value is Build Process That Don’t Fail. Our definition is: We encourage and celebrate continuous improvement. We aim to build systems and processes that are well-developed, thoroughly tested, and sustainable to ensure that we keep our commitments.

I’ll share an example. We offer same-day shipping on in-stock orders. Creating a process and communicating this commitment with you, our customer, was a big step forward. Before publicly sharing it, we had invested time updating our system and process to ensure we would do it consistently. As time has passed, orders have become more complex and varied, forcing us to continually innovate this process to ensure that we keep our same-day commitment.

Building processes that don’t fail doesn’t mean we are perfect; it means we are continuously striving to improve! While we try to anticipate how a process will handle multiple scenarios, we can only see around some corners. We’re looking for a commitment to refine the process when we find that the process needs to be updated. It’s a mindset of continuous improvement.

Here is a Forbes article providing feedback on improving processes.

Have a great weekend!

Chris

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Product Spotlights & Updates

The Meraki MA-ANT-20 antenna is a multi-band, omnidirectional antenna designed for use with Meraki APs that have N-type connectors. It is a versatile antenna and is suitable for a broad range of applications. Sold in sets of 2.

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Learning Center Article – All about Aruba 2530 Switches

When you’re trying to find the perfect hardware for your network, you’re going to have to weigh a few things. You can get the most powerful hardware on the market, but you’ll pay a pretty penny for it.

If you want to optimize spending without skimping on performance, then you want to consider something in the range of Aruba 2530 switches. This is versatile hardware that can solve problems for many small and medium businesses, and these switches hold their own for a number of enterprise applications as well.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• NBCUniversal global advertising chief Linda Yaccarino resigned. She has been in advanced talks to become Twitter’s new CEO.
• Tesla increased the U.S. prices of its Model S, X, and Y electric vehicles by a low single-digit percentage.
• Goldman Sachs has spun out the first startup from its internal incubator. The company created a networking platform for employees called Louisa. 
• Adidas intends to sell part of its leftover Yeezy inventory and donate the money to charities.

Happy Thursday & Happy National Eat What You Want Day! Today gives us permission to set our diets aside and enjoy a day of indulgence. What are you going to enjoy today?

In This Issue: New Experiences & New Habits | HP ML350 Generation 8 | What does 5G mean for business networks? | News to Start Your Day

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The CK Daily – New Experiences & New Habits

Good Morning!

Happy Thursday Everyone!

Lately, life has been steady for us. We are preparing for our big move back to Atlanta. I am very excited to see my family and friends when we get back! It feels like it has been so long since we were last around our families, which has been a big change for us. We both always spent time with our families multiple times a week! So going from that to not seeing them at all has been a drastic change. Though, I think it is something we needed to experience. It has been great to have such an open schedule to pretty much do what we wanted outside of work hours.

Sometimes, due to our hectic schedules, we rarely had time for ourselves unless we scheduled it. Having this break has been like a breath of fresh air. I look forward to getting some normalcy back to my sparse schedule. Hopefully, I can implement the habits I have learned while being away into our day-to-day when we get back home. I would love to find that perfect balance.

Anyways, have a wonderful Thursday and an even better Friday!

Joi

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Product Spotlights & Updates

An enterprise-grade server with high performance and efficiency, the HP ML350 Generation 8 Server is the most efficient choice for enterprise data centers, remote branch offices, and growing businesses such as SME Businesses. This high-performing tower server is designed to deliver the best combination of performance, energy efficiency, built-in capabilities, and cost-effectiveness. Its flexibility, ease of virtualization, and scalability make it a safe investment for SME businesses.

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Learning Center Article – What does 5G mean for business networks?

There is a lot of technology generating excitement for more applications than we could hope to name. One central theme to virtually all of that technology is an increased demand for data and the need for higher bandwidth for connectivity. More devices than ever are actively communicating, and they are placing massive burdens on existing infrastructure.

We all need a network that is built for the new age of connectivity. That network will run on 5G.

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Today’s News to Start Your Day:

• Best Buy is rolling out a new version of its membership program called My Best Buy in late June. The retailer is renaming the program and offering lower-priced options. It wants to grow the program as it braces for a slower year of sales.
• Disney+ will add content from Hulu to create a “one-app experience.”
• Eli Lilly has promised not to raise the prices of the company’s insulin products.
• Title 42 is the pandemic-era policy put in place by the Trump administration that immediately expels migrants without providing asylum hearings. Title 42 expires tonight, in conjunction with the end of the national Covid public health emergency. Title 8, the normal immigration law, will replace Title 42. That will allow migrants to apply for legal pathways to enter the U.S.