Complete Wireless Home Networking

Rating:
Summary: Incomplete Wireless Home Networking
Review: I gave this book a 1 star rating because there was no choice for less. I think it deserves no more the 1/2 star.

Lets start with the printing of the book itself. It looks like it was done in the author's basement on a broken down copier about to run out of toner. The printing on some of the pages was so faint that you had to strain your eyes to read it. Also the dozens of screenshots are so faint they are completely unreadable. In some of the shots there was barely any contrast between the shot and the white background of the page. Prentice Hall should be ashamed to put it's name on the covers of this book.
Now for the contents of the book. Yes, the author does state in the preface that it is not intended to be a wireless networking bible but he went too far in the opposite direction and made it too basic. He covers the hardware and it's installation fairly well but he ignores some of the software issues that can keep a network from working. For example, I could not find the word PING anywhere in the text. This is a very basic command that lets you know that you can communicate with another computer on the network, one of the first things you should try in setting up a network. Also the command IPCONFIG. He does mention this command briefly in it's simplest form but gives no hint of the useful parameters of this command such as IPCONFIG /ALL, /RELEASE, /RENEW and others. These are essential things you must try when things go wrong.

In my opinion, if you get a network working using this book alone it will be either by dumb luck or you have two brand new computers less than two days old. For me, I filed the copy I bought in the trash where it belongs.

Rating:
Summary: I felt like the woman on the cover when I was done
Review: Illustrations are the key! This book is just what I was looking for. The illustrations are the key to the effectiveness of this book - esp. b/c 98 is so hard to set up. Paul Heltzel does an amazing job of making this difficult task easy and - believe it or not - fun to do. If you have 98 and XP and are trying to set up a wireless network at home - THIS IS THE BEST BOOK ON THE MARKET!