BKNTDCCC.RVW   960527
 
"Networking the Desktop: Cabling, Configuration, and Communications", Deni
Connor/Mark Anderson, 1995, 0-12-185865-0
%A   Deni Connor
%A   Mark Anderson
%C   1300 Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill, MA   02167
%D   1995
%G   0-12-185865-0
%I   Academic Press Professional
%O   619-231-0926 800-321-5068 fax: 619-699-6380 app@acad.com
%P   367
%T   "Networking the Desktop: Cabling, Configuration, and Communications"
 
Even granting that "Networking the Desktop" is intended to be the series title,
the "Cabling, Configuration, and Communications" part does have a decidedly
practical ring to it.  Then, too, the Introduction talks about "installing,
upgrading, and maintaining" a LAN, and speaks of network standards only in
terms of "expansion" to a wide area network.
 
So what practical advice do we get?  Chapters two through six give us the
history of some major networking companies and their products.  Seven through
sixteen give us packet level details of the protocols without ever providing
information about how these can be used or addressed, or giving enough detail
for those select few who have to break out network analyzers.  The final six
chapters *do* mention cabling on occasion, but not at the level needed by those
who have to either make up or test their own wires.
 
Appendix B, however, is useful.  It's a list of network hardware and software
vendors, with addresses.
 
Should you buy this book, it *will* give you enough of the vocabulary to talk
to those who do know how to set up and maintain a net.
 
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996   BKNTDCCC.RVW   960527
 
====================== 
roberts@decus.ca    slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca    Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca
             "No passion in the world is equal to the passion to 
                   alter someone else's draft" - H. G Wells
Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER)