Sarasota PC Monitor
Home Networking Annoyances
A Book Review
by George Whitesell
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.Over 60% of the homes in the United States now have computers with a growing number having more than one. Connecting two or more computers together on a network allows the computers to share a single high speed Internet connection, printers and even files. However, networking can cause a lot of frustration when you try to set up a router, set your workgroup name for file and print sharing, work with IP addresses, configure your firewall or simply understand what the network allows you to do and what it does not allow you to do.
"Home Networking Annoyances - How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Home Network "does not cover the initial purchasing and installation of equipment for your network, but focuses on the typical problems encountered and maintenance associated with a home network. The book is divided into eight chapters covering problems associated with hardware, software, file and print sharing, security and maintenance, and an appendix covering the expansion of your network. The eight chapters are further divided into sections such as "Configuring Routers", "Troubleshooting Network Connectivity", "Installing Network Printers", "Email Annoyances", "Firewall Annoyances", "Wireless Security Issues" and more. Some of the topics like file sharing, mapping network drives and using command line utilities like net view, ping, and net use are for the more advanced user who is trying to repair a network problem or delve into the intricacies of file sharing. The author has added tips throughout the book with extra hints and cross references to more information about a certain topic that can be found in other sections of the book.
"Home Networking Annoyances - How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Home Network" is not a book to read from cover to cover, but it will serve as a good reference book to help you resolve problems with your network. The entire book is written in a style similar to a Q&A book, with a brief description of a network annoyance and then "The Fix" to resolve that particular problem. Scanning through the Table of Contents leads you to the solution to a specific annoyance. The book is well written and organized and the solutions to annoyances are easy to follow. The author interjects enough humor to keep things from getting too dull.
The book also includes a few helpful Windows how-to's that are useful whether you have a network or not, such as removing Windows Messenger from Windows XP, moving your My Documents folder, preserving printer ink, and stopping a printer that is spewing pages of gibberish.
Calling tech support is a very hit or miss proposition these days, consuming hours of your time and sometimes costing money as well. If you want to learn more about networks and how to fix any problems that arise you should consider adding "Home Networking Annoyances - How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Home Network" to your technical library.
O'Reilly Media, Inc. , ISBN 0-596-00808-2, $24.95
Copyright 2005. This article is from the June 2005 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/
The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.
See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.