Network Know-How: An Essential Guide for the Accidental Admin

Description

If I hired a new employee for my computer consulting business, I'd give them this to read. I'd HOPE that there was nothing in here they didn't already know, but I've seen supposedly knowledgeable people with tremendous knowledge gaps, so this would cover my bases.

Really it's more for the small business or home user. I can't tell you how many times I've had calls from very small businesses or home users who couldn't afford to pay me to help them with exactly the kinds of things this book covers. That's great, because too often I've felt sorry for them and helped for free: from now on I'll just tell them to get this book.

I was happy to see that the author did not ignore Linux and Mac OS X. I don't think he ignored much of anything: it's all here, from basic wiring to VPN's. No, it's not deep techy details, but it's more than enough to get you started and might just be all that you need. Best of all, it's completely non-threatening. You'd need to be very tech-phobic to feel frightened by this: the author explains things very gently, yet very completely.

I lead a little computer club here in our retirement community; I'm going to be waving this around at the next meeting and telling the people they want to get this. Very, very good.