we all strive for perfect wires inside our computers, but does anyone ever clean up the wires outside?!? what im wondering is, what are your methods and techniques ( if any) to keep the space under or on your desk clean. i think the whole world could use a thread about this, so post away! i for one, have no wire management atall, so i will benefit big time from this.
My desk has a modisty guard (lump'o'wood underneeth), I've already mounted a couple of power strips on it (alas the 3rd didn't have anything to easilly mount it with), which has cleaned up a few cables. What I'm thinking is something along the lines of a couple of cable trays to lift all the wires off the ground, though it might end up needing some form of trough to catch loops of cables dangling down, after all I don't want to stich everything into place Sutable cable trays are probably along the lines of those made for server racks: http://www.misco.co.uk/productinformation/~46057~/product.htm Cable though, umm this time it's designed for desks http://www.edirectory.co.uk/pf/pages/moreinfoa.asp?recordid=2561019
I did a bit of cable organizing behind my comp desk, but it's more than a bit ghetto... I straightened all the rear-case cables out so they didn't tangle enroute to their ports, then threw a loop of electrical tape around the whole lot about 18" away from the computer... It's out of sight anyway, and makes plugging & unplugging the tower a LOT faster & neater...
back in the day i stapeld several velcro straps to the back of my desk... every time i get a new cable, i velcro it into one or more of the straps. this keeps the cables off the ground, and routed where they need to go. as for power: i have my UPS and 2 power strips mounted inside the bottom drawr of my desk... then i took a 80mm hole saw (i had lying around ) and drilled 3 holes in the back of the drawr. all my power cables come down from the velcro and go thrugh these holes, to the apropreate strip/ups then i have a bundle of cables that goes over to my TV hutch, (av,cat5,cable,ect...) that run thrugh a "clutter cutter" which is just a slotted tube about 3 meters long, 2cm in diamter. this keeps the ghetto factor down a great bit.
It's a losing battle specially if one have to access/plug/unplug the thangs regularly for modding. At work, I have a couple of power strips nailed underneath the desk. I placed a few of those stick-on squares and use cable ties to form loops dangling down, and I run all my cables there. The adhesive-backed squares would end up falling down so I screwed them on and it's now solid. At home, I have a mess behind my open-frame home entertainment rack. When I have time (yeah right), I will make a custom power strip with common DC voltages and rid of all the ugly and space-wasting wall plugs.
These days I try to go wireless wherever I can. The biggest obstacle are power cords and the video cable. Years ago I made a power cord where plugs were daisy chained. It was something like this https://www.usa-assmann.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=208&catid=82 , but more like an "m" to keep cable runs short (wall plug at the upper left of the "m"). The safety people didn't like it. Then I found some extra flexible/limp power cord and bought a few for the office, but those were stolen and I never found them again. I never understood why VGA has to be so bulky and why everyone uses the cheap, stiff PVC insulation. There is extra limp rubber and high flex, soft PVC variations like they use them for test leads, but no body uses them for data cables. It's not like everything is coax. Bottom line: my table is a mess.
i use velcro ties (supposed to be color-coded but arent) to tie up the wires. the problem is when I upgrade mouse etc., I always have new wires that never get tied in, but i just leave the old ones. High on my modding project list is a box that contains all my bulky, ugly power adapters. I tried the slotted things, but they just didn't work for me. The only really good solution is to totally take everything out and redo it all, running the wire exactly as it needs to go. my biggest problem is with all the extra wire which i dont need or the really short wires.
