BKTCPIPC.RVW   981119

"TCP/IP Complete", Ed Taylor, 1998, 0-07-063400-9, U$69.95
%A   Ed Taylor edtaylor@aol.com zac0002@ibm.net
%C   300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario   L1N 9B6
%D   1998
%G   0-07-063400-9
%I   McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne
%O   U$69.95 905-430-5000 fax: 905-430-5020 louisea@McGrawHill.ca
%P   607 p. + CD-ROM
%T   "TCP/IP Complete"

Chapter one gives a not always reliable background of TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) consisting mostly of
trivia with a bit of structure showing how the various parts
interoperate.  Address resolution and routing are the major concerns
in chapter two, although it also looks at IP headers.  TCP, UDP (User
Datagram Protocol), and IP addressing get mentioned in chapter three. 
Chapter four gives brief explanations of some common Internet
applications.  There is a quick review of LAN design (and sinusoidal
voltage graphs) in chapter five.  Network component diagrams, more
voltage diagrams, rack diagrams, UPS logs, net clouds, and an ad for a
UPS manufacturer make up chapter six.  Chapter seven finally gets into
some detail on the current IPv4.  This is extended into IPv6 in
chapter eight, but that must itself be extended into chapter nine. 
Chapter ten gives extensive details on TCP while chapter eleven gives
almost no information at all on UDP.  

X, the windowing system commonly used in a networked UNIX environment,
gets a short description in chapter twelve.  Chapter thirteen talks
randomly about network management.  Some mixed information about
telnet is in chapter fourteen.  There is a bit of an explanation of
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) in chapter fifteen, and
other details in sixteen.  Chapter seventeen reviews a number of
proprietary network management products, concentrating primarily on
network cloud diagrams.

Chapter eighteen gets back to some TCP/IP basics with DHCP (Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol).  This is followed up with DNS (Domain
Name System) in chapter nineteen.  The book is finished with RPC
(Remote Procedure Call) in chapter twenty.

The content of this text is random, poorly explained, and badly
organized.  There are many better books on the system, such as
"Designing TCP/IP Internetworks" (cf. BKDTCPIP.RVW), the classic
"Internetworking with TCP/IP" (cf. BKINTTCP.RVW), "TCP/IP Illustrated"
(cf. BKTCPIPI.RVW), "IPng and the TCP/IP Protocols" (cf.
BKIPNGTP.RVW), and even "TCP/IP with Windows NT Illustrated" (cf.
BKTCPNTI.RVW).  I really can't see any audience that would
particularly benefit from this book over the others.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKTCPIPC.RVW   981119