I keep bumping into people who are not aware that crossover Ethernet cables are not needed in this day and age.

If you want to connect two computers together directly by Ethernet and if one or both computers has a gigabit port, a normal (‘straight through’) cable will work just fine.

There is one caveat – the speed and duplex settings must be set to “Auto” on at least one of the computers – the gigabit one in the case of connection with a computer without gigabit.

This is called Auto MDI-X, and it was ratified as a standard back in 1998! It’s years since I’ve needed a crossover cable, and I enjoy the simplicity of not having to worry about whether I have the right cable or not.