Network professionals lighthouse   April 27, 2004

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who feels lost in the fog but would like to find their way to network land.


Network professionals lighthouse   April 27, 2004
  1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This book is a great addition to any IT professionals library.

The author's knowledge of Network Monitor and its use to determine networking issues is amazing. The content in this book helped me understand the communication that takes place between network devices. Before reading Mr. Wilson's book I had no idea how to troubleshoot networking problems but afterwards I could sniff out problems like a seasoned bloodhound.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who feels lost in the fog but would like to find their way to network land.


disappointing   April 23, 2001
  15 out of 20 found this review helpful

I bought this book to learn about Windows NT troubleshooting, but now I'm not sure I can trust anything it says about that area, since it has so many mistakes in the area that I do know, TCP/IP. Errors abound when discussing the IP header. The Type of Service discussion doesn't distinguish between the TOS field and the TOS bits, whose meaning are obsolete anyway. It doesn't discuss Precedence, which really is used, for exampe, VoIP uses precedence 5. IP source routing, which nobody uses anyway, is explained in a completely muddled way and the example shows someone setting that option when pinging from 10.0.0.60 to 10.0.0.10, which would be a really silly use of the option. The book also has lots of typos and badly-written sentences. Where was the editor? You would think Prentice Hall could hire editors. The SPX chapter starts with this, "The SPX/IPX protocol is a still a common occurrence on many corporate networks." The only mention of AppleTalk is in the list of Application-layer protocols where it has two entries that say this: AppleTalk and Appleshare apples networking protocol suite AFP apples protocol for remote file access AppleTalk shoudn't be in the list and couldn't they have used an editor who knew what Apple means in the computer industry?


An MCSE's Best Friend!   March 31, 2001
  3 out of 7 found this review helpful

I bought this book hoping that it would give me a clearer explanation on the usage of NetMon and other Windows-based packet sniffers; and needless to say I was not disappointed. I've read two other books on network analysis but instead came up even more confused than when I started - this book finally cleared what those other texts were trying to explain without giving me the usual technical runaround (usually a pretty good indication that they really don't know what they're talking about either)... Highly recommended, especially to all you MCSEs administering your own networks!


A very respectable treatment   March 8, 2001
  2 out of 9 found this review helpful

I have been reading ed wilson's comments in various MCSE news groups for over a year. He has often refered to using Microsofts Network Monitor to solve many of the problems refered to in the newsgroups. I am working on my MCSE and thought I would get his book. I am glad I did!! I have seen many questions on the exams (on the w2k track) to network monitor. I have now read his book, and am happy to say, I did not miss any questions (I hope) that were on network monitor. I have played with it at home quite a bit now, and find it to be a fascinating product. His book has taught me tons of stuff about networks, protocols, and all that. It is a GREAT book, and an wonderful tool. When I get a network admin job, I believe knowing how to do network monitoring, and how to determine network traffic will help me a whole lot.