Excellent Book for Networking, but has an error.
589689
The author does an excellent covering the various protocols of networking and the TCP/IP standards as well as IP addressing.  The one fault is where he did not do his homework, he states on page 483, that "ZMODEM is a newer protocol that simply combines the features of XMODEM and YMODEM."  This statement is not true.  By going to [...] and viewing the webpage of the author of ZMODEM he would have discovered that ZMODEM was entirely rewritten by someone who was involved in the creation of YMODEM, but chose to disregard both protocols. It is an unfortunate oversight on his part.
Otherwise, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in networking.
3719583
Great book. I've been waiting for the re-write to Sajal Dam's book on SQL Server 2000 performance tuning for a very long time. The only problem with it is that that too many example scripts do not match the code in the book. [case in point: On pg. 289 it references a script called stats_changes.sql. The code in the download is nothing like the code on  pg. 290. Ditto for pg. 177 and several others.] This leaves the reader to figure it out for themself. The book includes an email address for the author that rejects all attempts to send him email and I see no updates to the download since it was first published. If these oversites are corrected, this would be a great learning resource for the SQL Server professional charged with performance tuning responsibilities.
4461400
Hi:
THe book looks good and has helped to get me going. The book will go off in directions in a haphazard way that reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer is trying to repair his basement by watching a video. The BIG problem with this book is that the code has errors in it that keep it from working!! This to me is a big NO NO and the reason I gave the book a low rating. Sometimes the errors can be fixed by adding an import statement here and there but othertimes it seems to be a question of coding logic. Now I have not time to debug their code so I skip it, but it would be nice to see it work...
On top of all that there is NO support for the book by the author or the publisher. This is strange considering other titles offer great suppor that usually rival software manufacturers support for their own product!
1494931
This book has some great practical advice for dealing with the often awkward yet crucial equity conversation that arises in startup businesses.

Normally, I'd give this a four-star review in light of the quality of its content.  Five stars I reserve for truly remarkable works.

The only reason I give this three stars was due to the poor construction of the book.  Before I'd gotten past chapter 2, the pages started coming out of the binding.  Maybe I got a bad copy, but I can't recall this happening with any other book I've owned within the first reading.

UPDATE:  As many of you can see from comments on this post, the author personally reached out to me in an effort to rectify the issues I had with the book.  This goes a long long way with me and I was duly impressed.  As a result, I have no choice but to bump my rating of this book to a 4.
4555947
It's a great book if you haven't done on of these before, but the link to download the patterns is broken.

The author really should get this fixed
231634
7th Edition.  As an experienced software engineer interested in moving to network engineering this book was very helpful in laying the groundwork for modern networking using Cisco devices.  Chapters 1 through 8 do an absolutely wonderful job of this.  I was not able to compile this information myself using Cisco documentation or other sources.

I found Chapter 9 (EIGRP & OSPF - 57 pages) to be much too long and technically dense.  This chapter should be broken into two chapters that covers exactly one routing protocol - each with its own set of labs and questions.

Chapter 16 (Wide Area Networks) is also ridiculously long at 40 pages of dense technical material - covering PPP, Frame Relay, and VPNs.  This chapter should probably be broken up as well into more focused chapters.

Some of the explanations to the review questions are without any convincing justification (Chapter 9, Page 500, Question 8 "This leaves option D, which must be correct; it doesn't make much sense, but it is the best answer.").  I find this just totally lazy and neglectful.  This practice makes a serious reader waste a lot of time wondering why this option is correct.

I also feel like this book was rushed to market by the publisher knowing that it contains several errors.  This would explain the "go to our website for up-to-the-minute updates" notes that you find on some pages, such as Page 428.

Sadly, this book does not cover everything you need to pass the CCNA composite exam nor are the practice exams and questions full reflective of what you will find in the exam.  I would recommend purchasing the "CCNA 640-802 Official Cert Library" by Wendell Odom - which is complete, has twice as many pages, better updated, and is published by the actual vendor of the exam.
594369
This book is fairly good to treat J2EE and UML.
However, there are some mistakes in the book:
1)Page 11, * should mean 0 or more. So, "Each person object may be associated with several Car objects" is wrong, should be " 0 or more Car objects".
According to the OMG UML 1.4 specificaiton ..., seciton 3.44:
"If the multiplicity specification comprises a single star (*), then it denotes the unlimited nonnegative integer range, that is, it is equivalent to 0..* (zero or more)."
2) Page 52, fig 3.2 is WRONG! It has only join, no fork. In an UML diagram, the fork and join must be paired!
According to Rational Rose 2002 help: "Every fork that appears on an activity diagram should ideally be accompanied by a corresponding join. ".
Besides these errors, I think it is a good book.
Thanks,
David Zuo.
1075093
This is a great book  and is full of information that is very helpful in the networking field. I like it.
1957202
i just received this book 09/10/2014 hoping that the publisher corrected the mistake previously found on 72-73- order of operations . i was dismayed to find that they did not i could not find an updated version of this book so i ordered this one. thanks to the authors comments i now have to go to another site for the corrections ,but at least that is a fix.
 my son is an electrical apprentice in ny and has a tough time grasping math and theory . i bought this book, as well as some others to assist him. i don't need the books to further complicate his learning. my star rating is based on that one mistake since there is no option for "wait and see"
2270886
This book has some great examples and exercises for the developing guitarist.  But beware: I began finding errors beginning on page 3.  Specifically the suggested left hand fingerings, which seem to have been mixed around with fingerings attached to the wrong voicing.
3242195
This is quite a useful book, as has been well documented in other reviews.  The tips are helpful, the examples are useful, and the typography and layout are easy on the eyes.

However -- and this is a big however -- the book is riddled with technical errors.  The errata file, available for download from the publisher as a PDF file, currently runs a whopping 11 pages.  While a small handful of errors in a technical book's first edition is inevitable, 11 pages is not a small handful for a book as thin as this.  It's really inexcusable that so many errors -- some of them quite obvious -- made it past the editor.
3973727
Overall this is a very good book with great illustrations.  Unfortunately, like other books on residential wiring I have seen, it hardly offers any information on multiwire branch circuits (MWBCs).  Most older North American houses have a few of these, and I think it is vital that DIYers be given a rudimentary understanding of the theory and practice behind MWBCs.  Without that, it would be all too easy for someone to wire or modify a MWBC incorrectly (e.g. both lines from the same leg in the panel) and overload the neutral conductor, which would be a fire hazard.  Separately I have run across some editing errors that should be fixed.  The egregious example is the photo on page 76, in which the service entrance conductors are mislabeled.  The SE cable on the left is black, but is labeled as the neutral service wire.  The middle cable is clearly recoded to neutral with white tape, and the ground bond is clearly tied in right next to it, but the label incorrectly describes it as one of the hot wires.  The rightmost cable is recoded red (as the other hot leg) and it is labeled correctly.  Separately, I have spotted a few instances in the text of "THNN" wire where I believe THHN was intended.
3410025
I used Steve's book, and the enclosed CD, to install Linux on a generic Duron 900 PC.
I used the book as a reference for my first installations of internet networking, DHCP server, firewalling, NAT (IP Masquerading), and it went off almost without a hitch.
I found the description of the init process illuminating. I also really like his approach in general--what are the critical options, which files do I edit to alter the system's behavior (and where are they), and strike just the right balance between description and examples. I found that after a few minutes of reading, I was ready to start implementing.
Due to the nature of the book, there were a few obscurities. The ipchains/iptables chapter was confusing, and felt like an afterthought (but that's the function I was most interested in). A key typo in that chapter, and not quite enough detail put a very minor distaste on an otherwise excellent introduction.
Thanks, Steve, keep up the great work!
3408507
The book itself is extremely useful. The introduction is beneficial in helping you plan a study guide and realizing how to break topics down. I felt more practice questions could have been included;  there are diagnostic exams at the beginning of each topic, and each chapter has example questions to work through. Color coding of the book is extremely helfpul as it indicates which equations are referenced in the FE Reference Handbook.

Unfortunately the copy I received has 2 major defects:-
1. The registration code does not work, so I can't access an electronic copy of this book
2. There are numerous mis-prints, missing pages (including solutions to diagnostic exams, and faded text.

Great book, but make sure you check the quality of the copy you receive and check the registration code works.
1024723
5 Stars, but one thing ruins an otherwise excellent book. I believe this is a printing error which has been present since the book was published and has never been rectified sadly. From page 73-80 it appears the diagrams are not complete or the images are in pieces, this spoils an otherwise great book. I was expecting this to be dealt with after the initial publishing of the book when I first bought it.
David Myhra is part of ( what I call) the elite Luft 46 circle and as such can't be faulted for his published works on this subject. I do find some( not all of his work) becoming repetative, it gives the impression of padding in places sadly.
It's a fine book all the same with especially fine photos of exotic models built by some top rate modellers, special mention must go to Gunter Sengfelder, Dan Johnson, Jamie Davies and Reinhard Roaser for their fantastic model picture contributions. I hasten to say the misprinted images are not the fault of the seller whose service was top rate in every way. A great addition to any Luft" 46 book collection or aviation bookshelf.
3992061
The information in the book is excellent. It's organized well, and I really like the "EXAM TIP" and "KEY" information call outs

As the other reviews state there's quite a few errors. Almost everything can be resolved if you look at the errata ( [...] ). Like most techie books this was written against a pre-release version of the software it covers so there's some slight differences.

There are errors and changes that need to be made in the Practice Exercises. I found the differences trivial and in most cases it forced me to do some critical thinking and explore the tools to make the necessary changes. Again, the errata helps quite a bit.

Practice test is awful, just plan to get Transcender or something like it. Supplement this with Microsoft's Virtual Academy training and it's a really good course to certification.
4465881
This book is excellent except for 1 serious blunder...the author is enamored with the "ellipsis" and it is sometimes very difficult to tell just what he means with respect to addition of code to existing pages. He should be MUCH more specific when placing added or modified code within his examples. The myriad (partial) code examples at the rear of the book would be of much more benefit if he showed a bit more detail.