Introduction to Local Area Networks

Rating:
Summary: Would get no stars if I had the choice
Review: From the back cover blurb:

"In non-technical terms, this book explores the fundamentals of computer networking."

It manages to do so by failing to explain fundamental concepts in LAN design including repeaters, switches, structured cabling and so on.

For a book published in 1996 it manages to be primarily focussed on 10-base-2 ethernet and Token Ring. Those well-known future-proof networking technologies.

I could suggest a use for this book, but I don't think the pages are sufficiently absorbent.

Rating:
Summary: Errare Humanum Est
Review: The definition of Baud Rate, as given in Chapter 7, under Dial-Up Access (Page 103), is wrong. Baud (or Baud rate) is the number of times a signal changes its state in one second (e.g. voltage). For details, see Computer Networks by A.S. Tanenbaum.

Rating:
Summary: Good for beginners, unnecessary otherwise
Review: This book is a basic overview of LANs written for a non-technical audience. I bought it because I had to - it was used as a textbook. Most of my classmates were engineers or programmers looking for an easy elective; I recall them studying the book fervently as finals approached. The network geeks (myself included) left it at home.

I do not fault the book for its lack of technical detail because that was the author's intent. What irks me is its overly impartial (some might say misleading) discussion of different technologies. For example, the section on AppleTalk fails to mention that it is noisy and slow, and the page on OS/2 implies that it can run current Windows applications (it can't). Another annoyance is that Ethernet is barely mentioned (and not a peep on collisions!). Is it any wonder that this book has an appendix called "hiring a network consultant"?

To sum up, if you'd like to learn a thing or two about networking, this is a fairly good introduction. If you already know more than two things, you do not need this book.