Home Networking: A Visual Do-It-Yourself Guide

This was a helpful and easy to understand guide book to home networking. I'm sure I'll reuse it as a reference guide for future networking projects. It covers the basics and provides detailed illustration for windows based wireless and ethernet networks. You'll learn about choosing the right network for you, what hardware options to buy, installation, setup, security, sharing.

Not that many years ago, many people felt they needed either a technician or a 12-year-old to install and set-up a PC. Many homes now are starting to have more than one PC. Yet broadband connections and high quality printers are expensive if you buy one for each PC. How can those costs be reduced? Add a home network. Before you faint with anxiety, look at this very simple book. It will guide you through the few technical questions you need to address and give you complete and simple directions you can easily follow (but feel free to recruit a 12-year-old to help you). Before you are done reading, you will also realize that you may also benefit from being able to put noisy printers in quiet places, eliminate cables, and do lots of neat applications (like visually monitor your children's rooms and front door) with your network. If you are like me, you've heard that wireless networks can easily be hacked into. This book tells you how to address those very real security problems. As I stand on the brink of our first home network, I am clutching this book in both hands . . . and am ready to launch myself into familial shared cyberspace saying, "I think I can do it. I think I can do it. I think I can do it." And I know you can! The only annoying quality about this book comes from the many plugs for Linksys products. But that's better than not having photographs and examples, so I bore with it. This book is not only simple; you can read it very quickly. It could have been greatly improved though by concentrating the material throughout around whether you want a wired or wireless network after providing an initial chapter that helped you choose one or the other. Now, you have to slog through every page to find all the information you need for one or the other. Perhaps in a future edition, this book will be updated to deal with that problem.

I have read many of Mr. Underdahl's technical books over the years. I was in the bookstore recently and saw this on the shelf... I work in the IT arena and am always looking for books for my clients that can provide walkthroughs in a simple and clear, but competent, delivery. This is one of them. Sat down and read about half of it in the store and was very impressed. Definitely not for an advanced IT person or someone who wants heavy nuts-and-bolts type info, but for the 99.9% of the population that wants to get that home network up and running and also learn how to strengthen it and make it better and more useful (say, home office users), this is a great start.

Believe it or not, there was a time - long, long ago and far, far away - when homes didn't have even one computer. But in today's world the house has the old machine, which you get to use; the new powerful machine, taken over by the kids because they need the power to play todays games; there's the laptop brought home from work or school which has some files on it that would be handy to have on you desktop. There's the web cam that you'd like to have set up to monitor the baby's room, or the security of the back yard. And all of these need to interface to the one broadband connection you have to the internet. The answer is, of course, a home network. It doesn't need to have the big file server that the office has, but it certainly does need a few of its features such as a firewall to keep out those who would use your system to send out unwanted SPAM. This book, billed as the only home networking book you'll ever need, goes through the hardware and softtware you'll need to set up a home network. It is profusely illustrated, usually featuring LinkSys equipment. But the functionality of the LinkSys boxes is basically duplicated by that of other vendors, so this isn't a big problem. It's a good basic introduction, and by following it you can get a network set up.

This is simply an excellent example of how to take the mystery out of a complex subject like home networking and making is easy for anyone to be successful with. It doesn't just give you the mechanics of how to set things up but also gives you expert advice on what the best choices are about things like wired vs wireless, printer sharing and others. If you are thinking about a home network, buy this book. If you don't know if you should have a home network or don't even know what a home network is, you should buy this book.