Description:
For a lot of professionals, the I-net+ will be a "scoop" exam--after all, the Internet's been around for long enough that anyone who works with it on a daily basis probably has a good idea of how it works. These people will want tiny (and cheap) books containing terse writing and a bare minimum of explanation, just to make sure that they've got everything before they go and lock themselves in that tiny, unforgiving room. If this is you, i-Net+ Exam Notes is it. If this is not you, look elsewhere, my friend. There are better books for the beginner, or the semi-pro, who wants full explanations. i-Net+ Exam Notes weighs in at a scant 287 pages, and the writing is as bare bones as a bleached cow skull in a distant desert. If you didn't know most of it before you read the book, you're not likely to have an in-depth understanding of any of it when you finish. This is not necessarily a slam against Exam Notes, however, since the book itself claims that it's merely intended to familiarize you with the subjects presented on the i-net+ exam--and to give you a brief overview of the topics you're not quite up to speed on. In this, it serves its purpose. There are six chapters, each mapping to each of the major exam objectives--Basics, Client Configuration, Development, Networking/Infrastructure, Security, and Business Concepts. These are broken down into two-to-three page sections explaining each of the exam sub-objectives point by point. Each section is followed by a two-paragraph "Exam Essentials" summary, a "Key Terms and Concepts" section, and a three-question quiz. The writing is very clear and to the point, explaining what it has to without a scrap of fuss or extraneous detail. You are given the bare minimum to get across the concepts that you'll need to pass the tests, without any sidelines, real-life examples, or ruminations on why certain technologies work that way. It isn't so much a book as it is a laundry list of brief explanations. As such, the quality of the explanations is critical. Writing a book like this is like walking a tightrope, balancing between the yawning chasm of "too much data" and the pit of "not enough to pass the exam," but fortunately Notes usually pulls off a pretty good circus act. Most of the time the explanations work. There are a few clunkers that could prove to be stumbling blocks for the uninitiated, though--there's no explanation of which graphics files are best for bandwidth purposes (.jpg for pictures, .gif for animations and graphics, etc.), and the explanation of VBScript doesn't bother to specify that it only works in Internet Explorer. The business section is slightly underexplored, as is the section on client configuration. Furthermore, there are a few weirdo comments that seem to come out of left field, like the claim that Web designers should use 4800 baud modems to check their download time. Huh? The information is here, though, laid out quickly--and redundantly. If you didn't get the fundamental ideas in the actual section, the "Key Terms and Concepts" or the "Essentials" sum-ups are sure to hammer them home. As such, you can expect to read your way through this book briskly but efficiently. The only real drawback of this book are the exam questions, which are not only horrifically simple but entirely wrong in a few areas. (You do not always need to manually enter a default gateway and subnet for a DHCP-served IP.) If you're concerned about what the actual i-net+ questions look like, you'd be better off buying a full book. But then again, i-Net+ Exam Notes isn't supposed to be a full study guide. Considering what it's intended to be--a set of core concepts to be read by the professional who should pretty much know it by now--it's a good and relatively cheap buy to be read the day before the exam. --William Steinmetz
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