Jeff Duntemann's Wi-Fi Guide, 2nd Edition

Constructing and administrating computer networks used to be an arcane job for professionals. Now, more and more people are setting up computer networks in their home, driven by thoughts of browsing the Web from their front porch as much as they are of sharing Internet connections and printers. Mostly, these are wireless or Wi-Fi networks. If you are thinking about taking the plunge yourself, you may want to pick up Jeff Duntemann's Wi-Fi Guide, 2nd Edition.

One thing you need to watch when buying a book in such a fast-moving field is timeliness. The official publication date for the book, from Paraglyph Press, was April, 2004, and there are a number of spots where you can see Duntemann strove to get the newest info, from 2004, into the book to keep it timely. In addition, most of the products he discusses in his examples are in the stores (or at Amazon, if you want to follow the links below) right now. The 802.11g products, the newest standards in the marketplace, are covered just as well as the 802.11b products that were still the standards in 2003. (802.11b and g are technical standards published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE. The marketing term Wi-Fi was invented to avoid using the technical terms while selling the products.)

The book opens with an introduction to networking. Wi-Fi is just a subset of networking, after all, so to get Wi-Fi to work you need to know something about basic computer networking. As a tech writer myself, I know that there is always a struggle to get the right tone to your explanations. One approach is to just ignore all the details (tell your reader to assume that it works by magic) and tell the bare minimum you need to know. That's the approach taken by the Dummies series. The opposite is to go into everything in excruciating, mind-numbing detail, as many technical reference guides do. In between is the "sweet spot" and Duntemann usually manages to nail it, especially in the early networking chapters. This is not a Dummies book, yet just about any intermediate to advanced computer user should be able to learn about networking, and then apply it to the wireless chapters.

Article Author: Bruce Kratofil

Bruce Kratofil blogs on bugs and other things that can go wrong with your computer at The BugBlog, and writes about computers and economics at BJK Research

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