"I hate to say it, but networking can be a pretty freaky thing. If you spend enough time fooling with networks, and mix enough technologies, things will happen that defy easy analysis and troubleshooting. This is why you must keep on studying, and learn networking as deeply as you can find the time and intestinal fortitude to do. Even the experts encounter problems that they never entirely understand.... 95% of networking problems respond well to calm though, analysis, cold systematic testing, and reliance on good notes. The other 5% will make you nuts. Be ready.
The first time I set up a wireless network, I spent hours trying to get the network configured, with many choice curse words aimed at the manufacturer of the wireless hardware. It was only on the second day of struggling that I discovered that the problems getting the network going was really due to my personal firewall software, ZoneAlarm Pro. Once I made one configuration change there, the system worked like a charm. On the other hand, you do have to draw a line somewhere, when deciding what will go in a book. Once you get started on networking problems, you may not know when to stop, and pretty soon instead of 483 pages of text you have 800.
Who will benefit from this book? As was said before, it is not a Dummies book. You will need to be at least an intermediate level computer-user to get much use out of the book. Although not an IT Pro, I'm an experienced computer user and author who's had a wireless network for over two years, and I've learned a lot from it. If you've got your CCNA or MSCE, you won't need the material but you may learn a lesson from the clear writing style.
While information in books remains frozen in time, you can keep up with the newly-discovered bugs and security problems with computers at the BugBlog.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
ah, this was one of those that was deleted but the page didn't rebuild