advice needed for home network

We're getting Comcast cable at our house. I've purchased a Motorola SURFboard 4100 and SMC Barricade because they seem to offer the best performance/features for the least price. What I am planning on doing is wiring to wall plates at four spots in the house where computers are or will be (when people come home from college over breaks or the summer). A few questions:

the wiring will most likely be traveling under floors and through walls. should i stay with normal UTP Cat5 or go for STP just in case? and do i need plenum certified wire?

a patch panel is a bit excessive for this project, so what i am planning for is having a four port wall plate right near the router which will then branch out to the respective wall plates at the four spots, where each computer will be able to plug into the wall. My question is this: how do i know whether to use a cross over or straight thru (patch) connnection for each spot? At this point, Im thinking i need to go straight-thru from the router to wall, crossover from wall to wall, then another straight-thru from wall to computer, but i am not entirely positive, and i cannot afford to mess up on this thing.

you may ask why i'm going thru all the trouble, but im a stickler for neatness and aesthetics. any help is appreciated.

Use straight cables though out. You only nomally use cross over cables when going machine to machine.

Not sure about the cable type, I use standard CAT5. One of mine runs down the side of the central heating pipes, I've had no problems with it.

about how far away is each terminal goin to be. use a standard cat5 cable unless ur exceeding 150Ft. alsodont run the cable where they can rub against eachother. friction is not good.

Cross-over is only from pc to pc. Don't install that. Regular Cat5 should suffice. They do also sell higher end cable(like cat6) if you want to plan for the future...

But do not install cross-over!

You do not need Plenum cable unless you are running the cat5 through a heating duct, it is rated so if it caught on fire that it would not give off any toxic fumes. Pick up some Cat5e and go hog wild and keep it neat

yeah with your router it will autoswitch from crossover so you don't even have to worry. I would go with the small panel only like 24 bucks at home depot and would make the project look professional if you ever sell your house. 150feet? how big is your house?