August 26, 2014 – Today I purchased an 8 port Ethernet switch. I got it so that I can connect to my Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black via Ethernet. 
Yes, I purchased WiFi Dongles for each of them and they are working properly, but when setting up the BBB with via Ethernet, the ssh connection was strong and never broke off when not in use for long periods of time. That’s the connectivity I want. I began to wonder if the abruptly terminated Raspberry Pi ssh session were due to the wife dongle being weak in some way.
So at lunch time I quickly walked the 9 blocks to Best Buy and purchased the 8 port switch. I wanted a blue and black Linksys/Cisco, but they did not have any in stock. Instead they had a girlish white colored Netgear Pro-Safe. I also purchased four 3 foot Ethernet cables, these were the shortest lengths they had and they were $5 each. It came out to $76 total. About $20 more than I wanted to spend.
I took the escalator to get up the ground floor and while half way up the thought occurred to me ‘did I really want to spend this much for this?”, “do I really need this?”. I reached the ground floor and went immediately to a cashier, waited 7 minutes and then was told that I could only exchange it in the basement. I rushed down to the basement and saw there was a line and I have but 11 minutes to walk the 9 blocks to work. So I left with the purchase. On my way to work I decided to take it back and then to keep it, take it back, then keep it. By the time 4:00 pm came and I left work, I had decided to think about keeping it.
So here I am feeling slightly guilty about spend more money for two small card computers, yet excited about adding some Ethernet ports to my computer farm. It occurred to me that I could use one of my many long Ethernet cables to attach my Zbox to the Ethernet. It has built in WiFi and does not need it, but why not connect what I can?
Right now the Netgear switch is still in it’s blue Best-buy plastic bag, and I am more likely to keep it than to get rid of it. Besides, I get paid tomorrow.
Update: August 27, 2014 – I ended up taking it back to Bestbuy. I could not justify the expense to myself. Especially considering that the four devices I was going to attach (Apple TV, Roku, Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black) all have wifi. Though some day I will eventually attach them all to ethernet, it’s more reliable.
