Only a Dummy would buy this! (Computing for Dummies)

Member Name: Welshlad

Product:	Computing for Dummies
Date:	24/01/01 (24 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Decent Networking stuff

Disadvantages: Half useless!

Networking for Dummies
----------------------

I bought his book expecting something of a beginners guide to home networking, and was sadly disappointed. While the book does give an introduction to home networking (and a good enough one at that), it tried hard to be more than it is, and fails miserably. By this, I mean the sections where it tries (and fails badly) to give a guide to installing Linux and other completely unrelated and needless inclusions that spoil what is a potentially very useful book.
If you buy this book expecting to use it as your starters bible for home networking, you will be disappointed by the fact that 30% is useless information that does not belong in this book.

The accompanying fact sheets inside the covers that appear in all of the dummies books I have seen are present again, and these to are very useful for a quick reference, with handy info available at a glance (e.g. valid range of private IP address values etc) but this isn’t enough in all honesty.

That said there are every useful sections of planning and installing your networking, as well as recent inclusions such as ICS, BackOffice and various other section that are well worth learning. If only this book had stuck to its task, it would have been a real top seller!

There are far better books out there on networking that stick to the task and do an altogether better job. Unfortunately, this one does NOT doe exactly what it says in the tin!
Definitely a missed opportunity!

Summary: