Product Description

Completely revised and updated, this text provides thorough preparation for CompTIA’s Network+ examination, and acts as a perfect text for an introduction to networking course.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8112294 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1024 pages

Review
“More than a preparatory network book for CompTIA’s certification exam, Network+ Guide to Networks offers some important guidance to those seeking to enhance their general knowledge about transmission media, network protocols, topology methods, remote connectivity, wireless and network operating systems.” - Esfandiar Bakhtiar, Clayton College & State University

About the Author
Tamara Dean has worked in the field of networking for over 14 years. She began her career at the FCC, analyzing the equipment and facilities records of AT&T and the RBOCs. Later she spent several years maintaining LANs with mixed clients, remote access, and Internet connectivity at a pharmaceutical firm and then at the University of Wisconsin. She has also worked as a networking consultant and as the manager of Internet services and data center operations for a regional ISP whose clients include Lands’ End and Harley Davidson.

Customer Reviews

O.K. for beginners...
I used this book in a Networking Essentials class that I took at a local college. This book is good for someone who has little experience and wants to learn about the various aspects of networking, or maybe for someone who has experience and needs a refresher on broad based concepts. But despite the book's title, Network+ Guide to Networks should NOT be your one-stop shop if you are looking to pass the Network+ exam. CompTia's Network+ test is rather detail oriented, and Network+ Guide to Networks is just too broad in scope to be effective (I passed with an 875 out of 900, but I had prior networking experience and I used some third-party software to help me prepare). It almost seems like they started this book with networking 'essentials' in mind, but then stamped Network+ on the cover at the last minute in order to generate some additional sales. All-in-all, not a bad book, but it's just not up to task for the demands of the Network+ exam.

Grueling Course
This book is officially approved courseware for the CompTIA Network+ exam. It has been approved also by the CSSIA (Center for Systems Security and Information Assurance). The book is very comprehensive. But as all textbooks go it has both strengths and weaknesses. In this review I will try to highlight some of both.

Like most computer industry books, this one comes with a supplemental CD. That CD includes the Certblaster and MeasureUP self-test software and other files the student will find useful.

Each chapter begins with a highlight box that will outline what will be covered in the chapters. Then it includes a letter or story from someone working in the industry. At first these seemed a little cheesy, but as I moved further and further into the book I realized that they were a great source for a feel for the material in the real world, and not just in the classroom or self-study. On the side of the pages are some green bars; these bars highlight specific information you are required to know for the CompTIA exam, and which exam objective they are part of.

One of the greatest strengths is that each chapter ends with a mini glossary of key terms or new terms from that chapter. There is also a complete glossary of all of these terms at the back of the book. Then at each chapter's end there is a series of review questions - multiple choice questions much like those found in self-test software and on the actual exam. Finally, each chapter has a series of hands-on projects. Each project gets progressively more difficult.

The greatest strength of this book is that it has all-encompassing hardware, software, different OS's. The weakness is that it is a lot of material packed very densely into nearly a thousand pages. When I did the school program, we did this book in 3 weeks. For most it was a little overwhelming.

If you want to write the CompTIA Network+ exam, this is a great book to help get you there. Pay special attention to the Novell Netware sections. There were a lot of questions on the exam about those. And Good Luck!

My thoughts
This was a textbook for a master's level course on "Intro to PC Networking". The book covers UNIX/NT/Netware and breaks up hardware and media into very logical parts and has some very comprehensive explanations of key terms BUT some of the remarks about specific operating systems are dead wrong! This book just came out (2000) and they should know NT 4.0 by now, but the technical proofreader obviously didn't do his job. I can't recommend it because of the incorrect information.