Rating: 
Summary: This is how certification books should be set up
Review: I love this book - the chapters start of by telling you what you need to know by listing terms and concepts to look out for, then teach you the material, then review it. I wish all cert books were this clear, well written, and structured in a way that makes it easy to learn.
Rating:
Summary: This is how certification books should be set up
Review: I love this book - the chapters start of by telling you what you need to know by listing terms and concepts to look out for, then teach you the material, then review it. I wish all cert books were this clear, well written, and structured in a way that makes it easy to learn.
Rating:
Summary: THIS IS IT!!
Review: I read this book twice. Read the FAST FACTS until 5 minutes before the test. I also read three other books besides this one but this is the primary one I kept going back to.
I passed the real test in the high 90 %.
USE this book!!! You will not be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Passed the Network+ with this book + practice tests =)
Review: I recently acquired my Network+ certification thanks to this book. It's very well written and does a good job explaining just about everything you need to know.
My only qualm is that Token Ring coverage is a bit light as I was very surprised to find a lot of questions about Token Ring on the exam. While I had enough knowledge to get through most of them, there were some that the book did not cover in this particular topic. You probably won't need another resource for it, just be sure not to underestimate token ring when you take the exam.
Finally, be sure to take the test at the end of the book. This is probably the closest test of the bunch (CD exams with $50 upgrade and all) to assess your ability to pass the exam.
Rating: 
Summary: Clear, concise and covers new N10-002 objectives well
Review: I was looking for a more modern book written well after the N10-002 April revision. I wanted to get away from the Sybex and Meyers mould which were printed in Dec 2001 and Jan 2002 respectively. So this led me to buy this study guide printed in August 2002. It covers all the objectives comprehensively when it can or otherwise in a concise well thought out manner. It is not a foundation-networking book but it will help you gain the required knowledge to pass the N10-002 exam. What I liked was that the diagrams, pictures and paragraphs are well spaced allowing you to breeze through the topics and not get bogged down by excessive technical jargon or non N10-002 related information. I was averaging 50 or more pages a day so I was able to read the 650 pages in just under 2 weeks. It has summary tables with all the necessary details relating to protocols, topologies, and the OSI and network media. It has 20 questions at the end of each chapter with detailed explanations. This makes 300 helpful questions. Plus the book comes with an official exam gear training CD-ROM with another 250 questions. The N10-002 objectives include topics like Wireless, Gigabit Ethernet, security and hands on troubleshooting and scenarios. Also emphasis is placed on Network operating systems and the protocols and services needed to connect these. This book covers all these topics well. This book has some errors but not many and they are easily overlooked for the most part. The emphasis placed on the Transport layer establishing, maintaining and breaking down the connection confused me somewhat and I had to read other books/sources to learn that this is the job of the session layer. Also the coverage of TCP/IP subnetting was rather sloppy and unhelpful so I had to refer to my old class notes to learn that fully. Also the book doesn't go into enough detail on topics such as digital certificates, message digests and certain security and VPN protocols. Overall it is up to date and I would recommend buying it for the N10-002 exam.
Rating:
Summary: This book helped me pass!
Review: I whole-heartedly recommend this book for those preparing to take the Network+ test. One with little to no experience in networking might need some extra study aids (or to invest in a class or two) but if you've taken a class and/or have some real-world experience then this book will help streamline the process. This book has been my bible for the last three weeks and it helps that the authors are clearly informed on the subject matter and are able to convey their knowledge easily to the reader. Examples, review questions, and a cram section at the back of the book make this one of the best Network+ guides out there (although, admittedly this is the only one I looked at). It also comes with a practice test on CD-ROM to help emulate the actual testing environment. The questions on this test were actually tougher than the real thing. Highly recommended and I will definitely use other guides from this publisher in the future!
Added September 8:
One error in this book to watch out for concerns NICs. The book says they're layer 2 but they are actually layer 1 devices. If I could I'd dock my score half a star.
Rating:
Summary: Great Study Tool
Review: I would recommend this book to anyone considering taking the Network+ exam. I used this book to revise for the test and was well prepared for the actual exam. The questions gave a good feel for the type found on the actual test. Because the book followed the Network+ objectives, finding the information was very easy. This book was enough for me to pass!
Rating:
Summary: Great for exam prep, not for beginners
Review: I'll get right to it and list the good and bad about this book:
Strengths
1. The book is an excellent exam prep tool, it is organized and laid out with great focus on fulfilling the exam objectives and ensuring the reader is well-prepared. Includes some handy exam tips on the types of questions which you can expect in the exam.
2. It has a very useful "Fast Facts" section at the back which summarizes a lot of useful information concisely, good resource for revising for the exam and for memorizing facts.
3. Has a very good section devoted entirely to TCP/IP.
4. Includes better-than-average testing software which has harder questions.
Weaknesses
1. Considering this is not an 'introduction to networking' book, this may not be a big deal, but this book is definitely not a book for beginners, some background in IT and networking is required to make full use of this book. Many times a new term or abbreviation is used without prior explanation of what it means.
2. Although it was published in 2002, I found some of the information in the book a little outdated. For example I found the OS section to cover a bit too much on the older Windows 98/Me than I like. This maybe a reflection of the fact that the exam covers these 'older' OS too, but I'd like it if it has a more current feel. Also some of the hardware recommendations given in the book feels like it was made back in 1999!
All in all, an excellent tool to help you pass your Network+ exam. I know it helped me :)
Rating: 
Summary: Average book, Average Writing
Review: One of the things that the authors do that really bugged me while reading this book was early on they were constantly referring you to other chapters, by name and number, for more information. It became very repetitive, I half expected them to start handing out page numbers right there in the middle of the text. Another thing I found a minor irritation was over-doing the table of contents. I really don't think every chapter needs its own table of contents. It felt like these things provided filler to get the page count higher. About the book itself, it does make networking concepts as easy to understand as humanly possible. I was a little dissapointed that every chapter had 20, and only 20 exam questions. Some chapters are much, much longer than others, and I don't think 20 questions was enough to test my understanding on the last 100 pages of material. The on hands exercising sounds like a nice idea, but I don't have a few thousand extra bucks to go out and buy Windows 2000 Server so that I can do all the exercises. Installing Linux has been quite the challenge, since I can't seem to get a network card working on a linux box, haven't been able to do a Linux server for the exercises either. The Troubleshooting section dissapointed me. It gives you the first step in the troubleshooting process, and then nothing. This is probably a failing of CompTIA, more than the authors, but anyone with any hands on experience knows you rarely get lucky and solve the problem with your first attempt. Alot of focus on cabling, which in my experience software is a bigger problem most of the time. Just not enough depth of troubleshooting strategy for me. But then again, the Exam probably won't go into much depth either. It sure would be nice for getting ready for the real world however. Just for the record, I haven't taken my exam yet, but will be next week.
Rating:
Summary: Average book, Average Writing
Review: One of the things that the authors do that really bugged me while reading this book was early on they were constantly referring you to other chapters, by name and number, for more information. It became very repetitive, I half expected them to start handing out page numbers right there in the middle of the text. Another thing I found a minor irritation was over-doing the table of contents. I really don't think every chapter needs its own table of contents. It felt like these things provided filler to get the page count higher. About the book itself, it does make networking concepts as easy to understand as humanly possible. I was a little dissapointed that every chapter had 20, and only 20 exam questions. Some chapters are much, much longer than others, and I don't think 20 questions was enough to test my understanding on the last 100 pages of material. The on hands exercising sounds like a nice idea, but I don't have a few thousand extra bucks to go out and buy Windows 2000 Server so that I can do all the exercises. Installing Linux has been quite the challenge, since I can't seem to get a network card working on a linux box, haven't been able to do a Linux server for the exercises either. The Troubleshooting section dissapointed me. It gives you the first step in the troubleshooting process, and then nothing. This is probably a failing of CompTIA, more than the authors, but anyone with any hands on experience knows you rarely get lucky and solve the problem with your first attempt. Alot of focus on cabling, which in my experience software is a bigger problem most of the time. Just not enough depth of troubleshooting strategy for me. But then again, the Exam probably won't go into much depth either. It sure would be nice for getting ready for the real world however. Just for the record, I haven't taken my exam yet, but will be next week.
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