Rating: 
Summary: Sorry excuse for a book titled "complete"
Review: This book (and his others) do not cover things from a "complete" standpoint. If you are looking for a book to help you design hardware from scratch THIS IS NOT IT. All hardware and references to hardware are for off-the-shelf demo boards or OEM products. This book is more about writing software for *existing* hardware.
Rating:
Summary: Sorry excuse for a book titled "complete"
Review: This book (and his others) do not cover things from a "complete" standpoint. If you are looking for a book to help you design hardware from scratch THIS IS NOT IT. All hardware and references to hardware are for off-the-shelf demo boards or OEM products. This book is more about writing software for *existing* hardware.
Rating:
Summary: "Complete" should be removed from the title
Review: This book does a poor job of explaining the actual protocols and structure of code. In my opinion, you could just as easily buy one of the demo boards mentioned in the book and read the documentation that comes with it rather than buying this book. Cheese whiz! Anybody can read an ad in a magazine for those Rabbit Semiconductor modules, buy one, and I'm sure you can be up and running with a minimum understanding of the hardware or the code in a short period of time.However, if your goal is to understand TCP/IP and layer two protocols, how to architect your code and optimize your hardware to meet the requirements of your particular project needs, then this book isn't going to get you there. You're better off getting "TCP/IP Illustrated" and even "TCP/IP Lean". A good summary of this book would be: "1) Buy a pre-built ethernet demo board. 2) Use the code that comes with the board and make the following function calls to that code." You could get the same info from any technical magazine ad and the documentation that comes with the demo board/module. And one parting thought. Is anybody who is willing and able to code up an embedded ethernet project really in need of an entire chapter devoted to the difference between a straight-through cable and a cross-over cable? Wouldn't that already be in your bag of tricks before attempting something like this?
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