Customer Reviews

Essential Guide to Home Networking Technologies, The

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think this book has no technical depth for home networking and it contains only the indexing information about technologies in home network. It has no conceptual foundation or guideline to build home network, and only gathers white papers or brochures of each vendors. I am regreting the purchase of this book.

Even working in the home networking industry, it's hard to find a good review of all the different possibilities, let alone find them in one place. This book is not only the only one of it's kind, it is well written and thorough. Every executive of every networking company that even dabbles in the home side of the business should have a copy of this book. In addition, most consumers will find this a good overview of which technology will work best in their situation. If you're thinking about connecting two computers together in your home, buy this book before you buy your first node.

Great book if you're a manager and you want to understand every 3rd word of what your tech geek is saying.

Good book if you haven't the slightest idea what a network is. You'll still need a tech geek to set it up.

Terrible book if you're a tech geek. Doesn't give any information about configuring networks or troubleshooting. Plus the hardware is changing so rapidly that I'm not sure a technical guide in a book would be of any real use. Even the hardware companies refer you to their websites for current information.

A friend in the biz gave a copy to me. He probably thought it was a waste of space on his bookshelf...

If you're just starting out, visit PracticallyNetworked on the web. It's free and much more up to date.

If you are looking for quick summaries of the various standards and technologies pertinent to home networking, this is a useful book. As mentioned by the other reviewers, it covers almost everything developed or under development. However, comparisons are scanty; the chapters give the impression of having been written independent of each other, even though certain areas might have merited shared treatment. For example, lists of pros and cons are given for network technologies like WiFi, HomeRF, HomePNA, etc without reference to corresponding areas of the others.

This would be an excellent book if more had been done to provide some kind of unifying framework.

Although I have read numerous press releases on the many exciting developments that are taking place within the home networking arena, there was no source available that brought it all together. That source is now available. As with his previous book on set-top boxes, Gerard O'Driscoll has done a great job in pulling together descriptions of all the technologies in an understandable and easy to read manner.