When does a "little thing" become a big thing?

Certainly, a tiny, near-worthless piece of plastic is a little thing by any standard. But when that piece of plastic acts as a spring supplying the pressure to hold an RJ-45 plug securely in a computer network card, I can think of few things more annoying than its failure -- especially when it is on the end of a 50 foot ethernet cable which goes to the Internet-connected router.

I find it extremely annoying that a tiny and stupid piece of plastic can cause me to lose a blog post.

To add insult to injury, you cannot just go out and replace the tiny piece of plastic when it fails. Mine began to fail by going flat, and instead of springing back against the wall of the female NIC receptacle as it was supposed to, I had to manually pull it back. Finally it broke off, meaning that the RJ-45 plug just sits inside the NIC opening in the most sloppy manner possible, as if waiting for the opportunity to fall out. And fall out it will. All I need to do is walk around, and the cumulative effect of the vibrations on the floor will eventually cause it to loosen. If I'm lucky, I'll be there and see the warning pop up. Then I can go back behind my computer and engage in the hopeless "repositioning" ritual (repetitively shoving it back in).

Most people in such a situation would go out and buy another 50 foot cable and be done with it, but I'm a cheap and stubborn son of a bitch, and I don't like the idea of paying ten times the actual value of the cable and two plugs because some greedy bastards had an imprisoned child in China do what I can easily do myself.

And it is easy to do it; the procedure is explained in detail here.

The infuriating little plastic spring which eventually flattens and breaks is of course integral to the RJ-45 plug, but that does not matter, as each plug costs only a few cents. No big deal, right?

It's a big deal if you don't have the crimping tool and the plugs lying around (which most people don't). So, I went to TigerDirect.com as directed in the post and looked around. Things must be getting pretty competitive in the crimping tool industry, because I found this one for only $4.99! Such a deal! Of course, a comment warns that it won't last:

"This was a great product while it lasted but for me was only about two weeks. It's awsome for the price but if you plan on using it a good deal... don't."

As for the plugs, they're ten for ten dollars at TigerDirect, but I can get 100 for less than ten dollars on Ebay. However, former are described as being for "round, stranded cables" while the latter are for "Flat Stranded Cable."

So what's that about? Am I now supposed to become an expert at distinguishing between "flat stranded" and "round stranded" cables lest I spend money and find myself stranded with the wrong strands? Probably so, because another Ebay listing delivers this ominous warning:

Designed for use with solid or stranded wire! Watch out! Most plugs are designed for stranded wire only and won't work reliably on solid wire!

Grrr....

See what I mean about a tiny piece of plastic being a major pain in the ass?

No wonder normal people just go and spring fifty bucks for a whole new cable. They're sold nearly everywhere now, with stores just waiting to take your money. So easy and convenient! As long as you just pay, pay, pay, and shell out ten times the cost, you won't have to drive yourself nuts acting like a cheapskate. (And you'll help provide more jobs for the imprisoned children of China!)

See how complicated this gets? And it's all over a worthless piece of broken plastic. I can either spend time and money (surely the former is worth something) learning the intricacies of RJ-45 cables and the repair thereof, or I can pay a lot of money, and throw a perfectly good (and once quite expensive) piece of cable in the trash, where it will eventually end up in a politically incorrect landfill.

Might there be a better way? I was intrigued to discover evidence that I'm not the only person to realize the absurdity of this situation. An American inventor has designed a Replacement RJ45 latch, which if ever brought to market, would allow people to save suffering Chinese children, and the environment, while saying money:

The replacement latch includes a housing and a latch within the housing, wherein the latch includes: a substantially U-shaped component having a middle section that joins a first arm of the U-shaped component to a second arm of the U-shaped component, wherein the first arm terminates at a first arm end that has a shape that is geometrically similar to a standard RJ45 retention protrusion, and wherein the middle section is rotatable about a pivot point that is inside the housing, and a horizontal activator having a depressor that is in sliding contact with the second arm, wherein a horizontal movement, in a first direction, of the horizontal activator causes the middle section to rotate about the pivot point to cause the first arm end to engage against a retention lip in a female RJ45 receptacle.

Hey, right now, I'd buy it. I think a lot of people would.

I almost feel stranded without it.

MORE: This site seems very thorough, and offers some details on how to distinguish between stranded and solid connectors:

The stranded-wire and solid-wire connectors are almost identical, but if you look at the crimping contacts with a magnifying glass, you will see one essential difference between them. The crimps of the stranded-wire connector have two teeth that bite straight down and through the insulation and conductors of each wire. But the solid-wire crimps have two teeth angles away from one another slightly, so that they bit down on either side of the solid conductor inside the wire.

It's as if I have to choose between becoming an expert about nit-picky and time-consuming details (learning the hard way, through trial and error reinvention of the wheel for a one-time project) or just simply pay up like another clueless chump.