Business Data Communications: Introductory Concepts and Techniques, Fourth Edition (Shelly Cashman) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Covers fundamental business data communication concepts, beginning with an overview and the companies involved in the field; the effects of communications on society; types of networks and security; wireless technologies; e-business; and the increased speed in communication services.

About the Author

Gary Shelly Gary Shelly, together with co-author Tom Cashman, wrote and published his first computer education textbook in 1969. Since then, more than twenty million copies of Shelly Cashman textbooks have been sold. In recent years, Gary, Tom, and a talented group of contributing authors have produced leading textbooks on computer programming, computer concepts, and application software. Thomas J. Cashman Thomas J. Cashman received his education at California State University, Los Angeles. In 1960, he established one of the first business data processing programs in the United States at Long Beach City College in California, where he taught and served as department head from 1960 to 1966. In 1969, he began collaborating with Gary Shelly. Since that time, Cashman, Shelly, and a talented group of contributing authors have produced more than 186 leading textbooks on computer programming, computer concepts, and application software. He has also taught summer institutes for teachers at the University of Central Oklahoma, Memphis State University, and Purdue University. The Shelly Cashman Series Thirty-five years ago, computer educator Tom Cashman collaborated with Gary Shelly, one of his programming students, on their first book: IBM System/360 Assembler Language, published by Anaheim Publishing Company. With the success of this book, they formed a writing partnership that has endured to this day. Shelly and Cashman soon became the best-selling authors in computer and computer programming education. In 1980, they published the first ever full-color Introduction to Computers text. Not only did they sell 1.8 million copies of this edition, they changed the face of the Introductory computer course forever. Today, the Shelly Cashman Series books, published by Course Technology, are used by thousands of educators and millions of students, all around the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology; 4 edition (November 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789568063
• ISBN-13: 978-0789568069
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #327,341 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Out of touch, March 23, 2000

By	Tim Johnson (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Business Data Communications - Introductory Concepts and Techniques, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

This book is a big disappointment. In the rapidly changing field of information technology, it is important to stay somewhat up to date with technology. Although the copyright date is 1997, most of the book has not changed since its first edition (circa 1990?).

This book contains such gems as "Today the ARCNET protocol is widely used in a variety of LANS (Page 7-16)" Ha!

The authors also go into great detail about the wonderous SNA protocol, choices regarding terminals, etc.

TCPIP is listed as a 'Wide Area Networking Protocol' and is not listed under the LAN section.

Some 'recent updates' to the second edition talk about the Internet. The inform the reader about valuable Internet utilities such as Gopher and Archie?

According to this book and a question from the exam pool, Ethernet is used on bus networks only...not star.

This is the worst excuse for a technology book I have ever seen. They should rename it 'History of Data Communications'

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Full of Technical Falsehoods, July 7, 2005

By	Christopher L. Simons - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am using this book for a data communications class at a local technical school. This review refers to the Fourth Edition of the book, which is current at the time of this review (7 July 2005).

I agree with the last reviewer who said this book was out-of-date. The book devotes much discussion to hierarchical networks that use mainframes, front-end processors, concentrators, and multiplexors. I consider this to be acceptable since the book is meant for data communications classes and not networking fundamentals classes. Data communications texts should be expected to cover phone systems and evolutions of communications networks, in my opinion. However, the fact that the text discusses these types of networks as though they are the current norm is unacceptable and misleading to new IT students.

In addition, the book has several significant technical and grammatical errors in almost every chapter. Take the following example, which serves as a (false) example of CIDR notation for IP addressing:

"For example, the IP address 186.100.0.0 would appear as 186.100.0.0/20 in the CIDR system. The /20 in this example means that the first 12 bits are used to identify the particular network, leaving the rest of the bits to identify the specific host." (Page 12.12, fifth paragraph)

This example--the only example of CIDR given, and vital to understanding the system--is ABSOLUTELY BACKWARD! The /20 signifies that the first twenty bits of the address are used as the subnet mask, and that the last twelve are used for the host. Fortunately, I have studied for many technical certifications like the CompTIA Network+ and Cisco CCNA and was able to recognize this as I read it. Other students may not be so fortunate.

Here's another example, from the chapter on network security:

"Hackers often try to plant a Trojan Horse (a program that is designed to be hidden on the computer and then start at some predetermined time in the future to do some damage to the computer) or ..." (Page 10.13, second paragraph)

This is also absolutely false. The first part of the definition, that trojan horse programs are hidden, could be considered true, but that they start at a predetermined time in the future, and that they do damage to a computer are both completely false. The widely-accepted definition of a trojan horse is a program that performs a different or an addition function to the one it seems and purports to do. Furthermore, I don't know of a single trojan horse program that does damage to a computer when it executes. Usually, these types of programs open a port and run a daemon on a computer, or perform some other function to leave a security vulnerability. Any damage that results comes after an intruder compromises the system. A "time-bomb" is the common term for a program set to execute at a predetermined time.

This last example seems to me to be far more disturbing: not only is there a technical falsehood (or two) in the statement, it seems that the author(s) sincerely did not know the material. Shelly Cashman publishes a lot of texts for technical schools, and perhaps the authors were too concerned with meeting deadlines or including a comprehensive number of topics, even if they didn't necessarily have experience in these areas. Books from other technical publishers, such as O'REILLY, Deitel & Deitel, and No Starch Press would never consider such errors acceptable. The fact that these errors are still present in the fourth edition is disturbing.

What's more, there is no errata page at the Shelly Cashman website to inform readers of typos or errors in the text. In my opinion, this is absolutely unacceptable for any technical publisher.

Unfortunately, not having a great deal of experience in other areas of the data communications field, like telephony systems and older network architectures, I cannot at present recommend an alternative text, other than one that has a number of good reviews and comes from a more prestigious publisher.

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Intro to Data Comm., May 8, 2009

By	Drexel Woods - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am a technician working in the Telecommunication Industry trying to expand my knowledge of Data Communication. This book is a great start for anyone who is interested in Data Comm. It is easy to read and was put together very well.