Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 384 pages
- Published by: Alpha
- Edition: 3rd Edition November 14, 2000
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0789724693
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0789724694
-
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 1.4 pounds
Product Review
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Networking uses careful language, plenty of diagrams, and a lot of patience to explain how computers networks function. This is basically an overview of networking technologies for those new to the field. The authors cover networking theory before comparing and contrasting implementations of local area networks (LANs) on a variety of platforms. You'll find this book handy if you're trying to decide how to build a LAN in your home or office.
Wagner and Negus deserve kudos for their extensive coverage of NetWare, Windows, and Unix variants. Many books of this sort cover Windows networking only, despite NetWare's huge installed base and Linux's growing popularity. In addition to explaining the functions of topologies, protocols, and hardware, the authors include considerable information--mostly in general terms--on administration, disaster recovery, and security.
The downside of this broad-brush approach is that there's a shortage of specific how-to information about software. Wagner and Negus include a chapter that walks the reader through the process of setting up a small peer-to-peer LAN (a workgroup) under Windows 95 and 98. This chapter's great, but it leaves the reader hankering for a similar how-to for Linux and NetWare. The book would have been improved by additional information on setting up heterogeneous LANs.
--David Wall
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Alpha Books
Millions of offices are now equipped with network systems--and millions of users are confused by network jargon and tasks. Finally, there's a book that makes sense of it all and provides lighthearted steps to getting a network up and running and using it effectively. Provides straightforward instructions on configurations,
software issues, interconnectivity, security, and more. Humorous, friendly approach makes an intimidating topic easy--and even fun. Includes Oops! notes, Techno Nerd Teaches tips, and Speak Like a Geek definitions. Covers Various
software for IBM & Compatibles.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Networking (Paperback)
This is the first _Idiot's Guide_ I've ever bought, and if others are like this one it will be my last. It's hard to figure out what exactly this book was designed to do. It gives almost no helpful information in the actual preparation of a network, but instead focuses (inasmuch as it ever does come to a point) on the nature of networks. Maybe this is good stuff for those facing a written exam in a theoretical course in college, but for those of us in the real world, there's simply not much here. Don't expect that this book will actually help you set up a network. Apparently this a "Complete Idiot's Guide" not because it explains how to set up a network in simple terms, but because you feel like a complete idiot after buying it.
Comment | |
(Report this)
Search for books at
