I have a webcam which has a puny four or five foot long cable. I would like to have something that’s much, much longer so I can bore people with my webcam.
Are there USB extension cords?
You can buy USB extension cables at virtually any electronics or discount store, usually in 6 or 10 ft. lengths.
However , according to the USB standard, the maximum length for a USB signal is 5 meters (about 16 feet). If you go longer than that distance, you can buy repeaters or powered hubs to extend the distance, placing a repeater every 5 meters, up to a maximum distance of 30 meters (about 100 feet).
If you want to go longer than that, you can get a pair of devices that allow a USB connection to be extended with Cat5 cabling (which can either be a simple length of cabling, or a direct patch through installed structured cabling - bypassing the hub/switch/router etc); there are some examples here: http://www.kvms.com/kvm_extenders/usb_extenders.asp