The Geek squad blurbs and chapters scattered throughout the book offer a lot of useful information and serve as an effective (and often hilarious) counterpoint to the text proceeding them. They do not concern themselves with technical details, but rather offer observations on how the networking hardware, the Internet and the people using them function in the real world. These sections made reading the book an entertaining experience for us, which is a valuable thing.

Home Networking Simplified is well written throughout, though we did see a few spelling and spacing errors. The only factual error that we noticed in the book was a section in the firewall security chapter stating that Windows XP features a software firewall only after Service Pack 2 has been installed. To be fair, the post-SP2 Windows XP firewall is enabled by default, has more features and is much easier to use, but every version of Windows XP has an effective integrated firewall if you know how to activate it.

Final Thoughts: Home Networking Simplified

Home Networking Simplified is one of the more entertaining networking how-to books we have ever read. The general tone of the text and especially the Geek Squad chapters and blurbs both add considerable mirth to what can be a crushingly dry subject.

The technical and how-to portions of the book do not stand-out particularly. The information is correct and generally well written, but its density relative to other books we've seen on the subject combined with a lack of easy examples, metaphors or diagrams to help readers digest the information can make it tougher to get through than it needs to be. In contrast, the second half of the book (dealing with security, Internet use and advanced projects) is excellent. All the sections in the latter half are extremely well written and easy to follow.

Home Networking Simplified by Cisco Press is appealing to look at and hold, and the included illustrations are colourful and attractive. The photographs should have been redone though, as they give the book an air of being rushed to press.

For $25, Home Networking Simplified is a bargain for readers interested in the subject. It's quality as an instructional text comes almost as much from its readability as the information it contains. It's rare to laugh while learning about networks, so we'd like to encourage this concept in future releases.

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