Home Networking Annoyances: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things about Your Home Network

Q and A format in areas like network adapter problems, mixing communication speeds, configuring routers, mapped drives, messenger features getting blocked by firewalls, that sort of thing.

I have a home network. Well, really it's a small network in a home that I use for business. I don't know if that's a home or business network. But anyway, I have one. It's working at the moment. The reason it's working is because I bought this book. The data comes in on a DSL line into a D-Link router. I usually write things like IP address, login name, password, etc. on a slip of paper and tape it to the bottom of the device. I have a good memory, but short, and this helps. No login name oe password on the router. I picked up this book, and on page 28 there the annoyance -- Getting to the router. Here she gives the IP address of the router (and those of Belkin, Linksys, and Netgear) as well as the default user names and passwords. Fixing just one problem like this makes this book well worth while. And reading the rest of the book (fast to read because you only look at the annoyance and skip the answer if it doesn't apply to your problem of the moment) gave me several better understandings of some of the problems that I've faced before. This is a beginning to intermediate level book on home networking. It's a lot more than just annoyances.

A grab-bag of hardware and software fixes. Logically, the book starts with discussing hardware problems. Simply because if you can't overcome some of these, you won't have any software problems. Frankly, this hardware section is the most important part of the book. Grubby, but often occurring issues like how to run ethernet between rooms or floors in a building. It's things like this that make some people opt for wireless connections. Much cleaner and easier, right? Well, Ivens explains that you get other problems. Like a greater risk of evesdropping. Or your wireless transmissions might be blocked by metal objects in your environment. Don't take the "Home" in the book's title too literally. Much of the book can be germane to you having to set up a network in a workplace. A lot of the book's value is in how Ivens plainly and simply explains the problems and their fixes. In very nontechnical terms that make it clear what you can do to resolve the problems.

It would be easy to think of a whole variety of things as networking, web clients, email, ftp. This book works at a lower level than that, debugging routers, internet connectivity, file sharing, and the basics. Though the basics can be difficult. If I could fault the book it would be that the exposition for some of the recipes are a little too short. Simply introducing a solution as opposed to walking through it at a reasonable depth. That being said, sometimes sign posts are as valuable as step-by-step maps.