Build Your Own Server [Paperback]

Tony C. Caputo (Conductor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0072227281 | ISBN-13: 978-0072227284

The ultimate guide to building your dream system--without spending a lot of money! This step-by-step guide features more than 200 photographs illustrating how to install and configure hardware components and set up a Workgroup, Domain (Active Directory) and VPN network, using Windows 2000/ .NET Server.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Share resources within any office environment--or between two or more computers--by building and maintaining your own server. Maximize the same server functionality large corporations use for better security, improved workflow, enhanced cohesiveness, and data and resource sharing. Give customers or employees secured access to data from their own Web browsers, administer your server remotely, turn your server into a wireless access point for secure, shared wireless networking, and much more. Build Your Own Server is a complete, illustrated step-by-step guide to the skills, tools, and accessories you'll need to build a server with 99.9 percent uptime for a fraction of the cost.

• Construct the nucleus of an internetworking computer system
• Choose cost-effective hardware for building and/or upgrading
• Increase security for all corporate resources
• Set up, configure, and troubleshoot a server for sharing your printer, files, Internet connection, and more
• Create remote connectivity to access your workstation from home or on the road
• Restrict access to unwanted online content
• Automate nightly backups, updates, and maintenance
• Provide your customers with 24x7 access to dynamic information
• Configure a Web server for a Web site, Intranet, or Extranet
• Set up a Workgroup, Domain (Active Directory), and VPN network using Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003

About the Author

Tony C. Caputo (Plainfield, IL) has been writing both fiction and non-fiction for 20 years. He's written books, articles, white papers and business plans and is a speaker at conferences about Internet technologies. He's a regular writer for Techrepublic.com and is the newest technology "personality" for the Chicago Tribune (beginning in July 2002), with a column appearing every Wednesday. Currently, he's a senior consultant for Intellisys Technology, with offices in Australia, Singapore, India and the USA.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/OsborneMedia (February 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072227281
• ISBN-13: 978-0072227284
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #689,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tony C. Caputo has a thirty-year writing history with business plans, articles, books and screenplays.


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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I read someone elses copy then bought my own., June 13, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Build Your Own Server (Paperback)

Yes, it has a heavy bias towards Microsoft, but so what. I just followed all the hardware suggestions and then installed two real operating systems ( OpenBSD x 2 ). This book brought up issues that I had never thought of ( Why would you want to dual boot a server?) Its easy to follow. If you build computers, buy this book. Like I said in my title, I read someone elses copy and then bought my own.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's up and running!, June 15, 2003

By 

Loren Bast "fullbast" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Build Your Own Server (Paperback)

This book really worked for me. To give you some background, I'm a former web developer (now in business school) who needed a server for both a start-up business of mine and some home stuff that a laptop wouldn't be suitable for. I had never built a box before, but Tony laid out the steps and crucial tips very well. This isn't a "Building a Server for Dummies" exactly, as Tony assumes that you have at least an average to above-average level of computer proficiency (which is a good assumption, otherwise you probably would have no reason to want to build a server).

I will agree with another reviewer who claims the book is very Microsoft-centric, and doesn't address the huge costs of Win 2003 server licenses. However, in my opinion, the first few chapters about hardware alone are worth the price of the book, and the topics addressed in the software chapters can easily apply to a Linux installation as well.

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A mediocre book which panders to Microsoft, September 6, 2004

By 

Keith Carlsen "widgeonkeeper" (Asheville, NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Build Your Own Server (Paperback)

As a PC Assembly book, this is modestly useful, but there are a lot of PC assembly books out there. (Incidentally, I have not found a current title as concise and well written as "PC Hardware Configuration Guide : For DOS and Solaris" by Ledesma, which is ten years old and therefore of historical interest only.) It's expensive and there is very little difference between building a commodity Wintel PC for server, workstation, home PC or Gaming use other than which specific components to choose.)

Where it falls apart is its complete dependence on, and unsupportable and flatly wrong statements urging the user to use, Microsoft Server software. Usually, a legal copy of Windows Server and associated software client licenses and applications will exceed the cost of the hardware in a low end server installation, and it will usually use those resources far less efficiently and securely than will a Unix-based operating system. I suspect this is simply because he is lazy or because he wishes to curry favor with Microsoft-aligned organizations, although he well may believe that the average reader is just too dumb to learn Unix.

In this era, no one without basic Unix skills can consider themselves legitimately fit for any type of IT professional status. While I do not believe that Unix operating systems are always the best choice for server service-AS/400, VMS, and several others in addition to Microsoft Windows have legitimate places in many business environments-if one is seeking to minimize total costs and use low-cost commodity hardware efficiently with "Sweat equity" over expensive consultants or spending a large amount of time learning arcane skills-Unix-based Open Source operating systems and applications (such as Apache) are the legitimate default, not Windows Server. The only advantage of Windows Server over Unix-based NOSes,in fact, is in its ability to provide certain services to Windows clients: it is never easier to _correctly_ and _securely_ deploy. And it almost always requires substantially greater hardware resources.

In short, there are better PC hardware books and, if you really do need Microsoft NOS, better Microsoft books. And there's probably a better than even chance, if you are inclined to read this book, that in fact you don't need Microsoft.