Newbie question re connecting wall sockets

The cable in the wall (ie between the wall plates) should *always* be wired straight unless you plan to drive someone else nuts at a later date. That person might be you.

In the rare case you need an x-over cable it should be one of the patch cords and it should be clearly labeled as such.

I go with the concept that x-over cables should be no longer than 6-10'.. beyond that, use a straight cable, and put an adaptor on the end where you need it, either a short crossover cable + coupler, or a jack/pigtail adaptor.

Since the teleco supplies red cross-over cable with their DSL modems, we adopted red cables to denote a cross-over cable. If we have to make up one, we place an inch of red heat shrink near both ends.

We also keep a six inch cross-over adapter "null modem" in field kits for like working on web cams that are mounted up high and can't swap a cable or connecting two laptops together. Also have a few "gender changers" for testing stuff - that way we don't have to reach around equipment to swap cables, just pull one end out.

I suppose Bob's idea above is to just simply keep cross-overs out of the landscape to avoid confusion.

For future reference, crossover cables are generally used between 2 switches. Most everything else gets punched/crimped to the "B" code, which is straight through. Remember, a plate or panel is only pass through device that acts as an extension of the initial run. You could also consider just putting in a wireless router ...