Amazon.com
The PC business is full of rags-to-riches stories. But perhaps none is as dramatic as the rise of Dell Computer. In Direct from Dell, founder and CEO Michael Dell tells how he started his company from a dorm room at the University of Texas with less than $1,000 and built it into an industry powerhouse with a market capitalization of well over $100 billion. What makes Dell Computer unique is not what it sells, but rather how it sells it. Dell was first in the PC industry to pioneer the direct-selling model, a method that competitors such as Compaq and Apple Computer are only now starting to embrace. By cutting out the intermediary and creating a direct link between manufacturer and customer, Dell was able to provide customers with computers that cost less and that were more apt to meet customer needs.
Direct from Dell is organized into two parts. The first recounts the history and the enormous growth of Dell Computer. The second part focuses on Dell's management approach, from developing customer focus to creating alliances with suppliers. The book manages to avoid most of the promotional and self-congratulatory air that seem to plague so many first-person CEO tomes. Anyone who has followed the PC industry or would like insight into Dell Computer's success should enjoy reading this book. Well written and easy to read. Recommended. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
At nineteen, Michael Dell started his company as a freshman at the University of Texas with $1,000 and has since built an industry powerhouse. As Dell journeys through his childhood adventures, ups and downs, and mistakes made along the way, he reflects on invaluable lessons learned.
Michael Dell's revolutionary insight has allowed him to persevere against all odds, and Direct from Dell contains valuable information for any business leader. His strategies will show you effective ways to grow your business and will help you save time on costly mistakes by following his direct model for success.
Customer Reviews:
interesting personal story but low value.......2006-12-18
Michael Dell tries to tell us how is company has been so successful and winds up writing an incredibly self serving biography even for a business man. It is so useless on information that it is amazing he got as many pages he did. Basically if you want to succeed in business you have to be brilliant like he is. While the direct to consumer model is very interesting his claim that he should be the sole possessor of it is ludicrous but what can you do. Read at your own risk.
Useful insights from Dell's direct sales success story.......2006-11-06
If you are in the computer business, or in sales, you already know the Dell story. It's about a driven man, Michael Dell, who came up with a simple idea - direct sales - and then expanded his company into the world's second biggest manufacturer of personal computers. Dell's personal story is inseparable from the story of his company, and his book gives readers his unfiltered, first-person perspective. He covers his company's history, challenges, problems and successes in an unvarnished, matter-of-fact style. We highly recommend this book to anyone in the computer industry, to entrepreneurs and to managers who want to make their small businesses grow.
Lessons from a leader.......2006-06-04
Its important to distinguish the book from the leader/company that is Dell. The company and the person are outstandingly awesome while the book is "just great"!! The first part of the book deals largely with a quasi-autobiographical-chronological account of the tale from the high school summer job of Michael Dell to the $30Billion company that is Dell. In this journey, we read about some of the core values that seems to enshrine the man and his company and get a glimpse of the critical twists and turns that made his company what it is.
In the second part of the book, we are treated to a bit of preaching - which is a different tone from the first part, but by now typically the reader is all in admiration for Dell & hence cant but resist to read each chapter and try to pick out the relevant bits to implement back in ones' own sphere of work. And that is where this book scores, some of the insights and lessons though straightforward, force the reader into contemplation.
Quite a brilliant read!
Useful only if you want to know Dell's history.......2005-12-14
Two parts in the book: one for Dell Co. development, another for Dell's management.
I know Dell as it dominates the PC market for serveral years, and it seems that Dell is a few companies that can earn money in this low-return industry. When I studied Operation Management, I was taught Dell has been very successful by its DIRECT model and its stock flied and flied. Direct from Dell provdies the first hand information as it is written by Dell's chairman and CEO, Michael Dell, although I don't know how much is written by him.
It do let me know more about Dell's history and how Michael became rich, and, that's all. This is the first part of the book.
After reading a few pages in the second part, I lost interest. Dell talks about his management principles, but many of them could be found in management books--nothing special and not worth to read. So I stopped.
I am following Michael Dell Path.......2005-09-13
I started my business a year ago and my aim is to become one of the world top businessmen next to Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Michael Dell and others.
I am facing many problems in my start-up business, after reading Direct from Dell i found out that Dell faced similar problems in his business. The book provided me with guidance, inspiration, and motivation to survive the bumpy ride of a new business.
Thank you Michael Dell...
Amazon.com
Most golfers know the great teacher Harvey Penick, longtime pro at the Austin Country Club in Texas, through the lovely epigrammatic writings of his Little Red Book and the sequels it spawned. Tom Kite, the former U.S. Open champion who captained the 1997 American Ryder Cup team, knew Penick more intimately. He was Kite's instructor, coach, confidante, and touchstone for three decades. His memoir of life with the master is warm and touching, an engaging tribute to a man whose life was the game and whose devotion to the game absolute. Kite also tees up a moving examination of his longtime friendship and rivalry with Ben Crenshaw, Penick's other star pupil. Ultimately, writes Kite, "Penick wasn't meant to be explained or analyzed. He was meant to be enjoyed." In Fairway to Heaven, Kite "takes dead aim"--as Penick always counseled--and the enjoyment is contagious. (Penick fans take note: The Wisdom of Harvey Penick: Lessons and Thoughts from the Collected Writings of Golf's Best-Loved Teacher is also available.)
Customer Reviews:
About A Life of Golf.......2001-05-26
Kite (as Crenshaw in his new book) were so closely attached to Harvey Penick. His calm, relaxed approach to golf and life certainly produced two of golf's finest in Kite and Crenshaw.
Here Kite adoringly relates his life and the influence that Penick had, "take dead aim." As Kite relates, it meant to him to be calm yet aware, to focus on what one is doing at the time, blocking out all the rest.
This guy is so consistent! One learns much here from this book about practice, persistence and taking dead aim.
Onlt those who truly love the game can appreciate this........1999-02-21
This book really touches that special feeling that comes with really loving the game. There is so much that goes along with the words in this book, if you can read between the lines, you can learn an immense amount about life.
Average customer rating:
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Western Gunslingers in Fact and on Film: Hollywood's Famous Lawmen and Outlaws
Buck Rainey
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Book Description
Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Belle Starr, Wyatt Earp, the Younger Gang, the Dalton-Doolin Gang and Bat Masterson-where does the truth end and the legend begin? Each chapter-length entry here first focuses on the known facts of the people's lives, then compares the truth to how they have been portrayed in the movies.
Book Description
Acclaimed for his writing on Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Tupac Shakur, and many more, Michael Eric Dyson has emerged as the leading African-American intellectual of his generation. This collection gathers the best of Dyson's vast and growing body of work from the last several years: his most incisive commentary, the most stirring passages, and the sharpest, most probing and broadminded critical analyses. From Michael Jordan to the role of religion in public life, from Toni Morrison to patriotism in the wake of 9/11, the mastery and ease with which Dyson tackles just about any subject of relevance to black America today is without parallel.
Customer Reviews:
Old subject, new language.......2006-07-25
There's no real new ground breaking stuff here. The wit and eloquence mask work that is rather shallow. While the language is first rate and provocative, a careful analysis of the factual information presented shows a glaring omission of so many more facts that most of his premises are undermined when viewed in a larger, more realistic context.
The best way to put this in perspective is that this author is a black man from poor, humble beginnings who's trying to make a case for how it is impossible for blacks to succeed in the very society that has made him into the wildly successful multimillionaire, author, speaker, professor, radio personality he is today.
And the reason is the usual cop-out: it's someone else's fault.
Two stars for wonderful use of language.
Don Quixote American Style.......2005-09-19
Dyson's book is intellectual fancy footwork at its delicious best. But in the end it too is all but sound and fury about nothing. These very fresh and eclectic essays explain everything but resolve nothing. There is no return address for those responsible for screwing up Western Civilization so badly.
Except for an impassioned appeal to return to Christian love and to expand the paradigm of Christian understanding (most eleganly expressed in his outline of Homoerotic Theology), Dyson's intellectual two-step continues to beg the questions: who is responsible and what is to be done about the moral mess made of America and more generally, Western Civilization?
Dyson is nothing if not an "intellectual devil" busy digging up and kicking up dust in all of the wrong places (the OJ trial, MLK plagialism and womanizing, Black preachers womanizing, ect.) "Braindead America" needs nothing more badly than it needs an intellectual provocatuer like Dyson--a veritable font of new ideas: the man's mind is on fire!
However, it is not enough to go about willy-nilly across the American landscape slaying easy to kill dragons and flailing at easily targetable sacred cows. The real intellectual challenge is to do what Robert Jensen at the University of Texas at Austin has done: Put your intellectual money where your intellectual mouth is: Put that powerful intellect in service to solving problems and into making fundamental changes in this bankrupt American way of life. [Look at New Orleans, for Gods sake?]
It is easy enough, if you are a black intellectual to take the moral highground and rain down sortie-after-sortie upon America's 51st state--the State of Denial--but it is quite another task to admit that had Christianity itself not been sound asleep at the wheel, we might NOW have a very different kind of America.
While whites continue to wallow (scared to death) in their privilege and prerogatives (while Rome burns), black intellectuals like Dyson and Cornel West stay as close to them as possible, ever-jabbing them in the sides hoping that some of the crumbs from the tree of privilege will fall upon them.
This is a hellava way to fight racism, sexism, homophobism, and all other brands of chauvinism but what else can they do? Black intellectuals have the elitist racist "neocons" on one side and the elitist racist "liberals" on the other, and the elitist racist Christians in the middle. They are hemmed-in on all sides. No wonder all they do is flail, Don Quioxite-like at the racist American windmills.
But if they keep flailing, they too will eventually find their footing. Please keep flailing.
Five stars!!
Where is the Authentic Black Male Voice?.......2005-09-13
This is writing (and thinking) of both a very high and a very low order -- and should be read for both reasons. Dyson hits his stride in this varied (and sometimes uneven) collections of essays and is most eloquent and convincing in his deconstruction of "whiteness" and "black maleness" and in his discussions of some of the most destructive consequences of each.
He is most ineloquent (almost disingenuously so), when analyzing and giving a curious and gratuitous defense of black feminism. Clearly his heart is not in it. Indeed, one is prompted to ask where all this groveling at the feet of black women comes from in today's male black intellectuals? Do their black feminist friends inveigh upon them to do this? Are all of their wives black feminists? Or, is it all just part of the multiple whippings that black men get as part of their normal socialization in American society (mother-whipped, police-whipped, bible-whipped, and pussy-whipped)?
It is here, as a ventriloquist's voice for the black feminism Cause that Dyson decides to camp out and make what can only be termed a dead man's stand - an existentialist position without either legitimacy, dignity, honor or honesty. Like other black male intellectuals of his ilk, Dyson uses black feminism (instead of authentic black maleness) as a base for establishing his own intellectual persona and ethnic bona fides - perhaps trying too hard to make a last gasp effort to establish a linkage between the sexes of an ever-dying black community.
It is a curious posture indeed for a black male (let alone a black male intellectual) to assume, given that his own much-maligned group, black males, has no voice in the national conversation (of which he is a prominent and critical part). Does he not realize that unless and until he has made a case for his own subgroup, he cannot respect himself or be respected by others (including by black feminists)? What is all this black male self-sacrifice all about? Guilt? Self-hatred? Oedepidal?
Two aspects of Dyson's analyses stick out like a sore thumb: How is it that he can defend the black feminism's negative position about the black male without first defending his own turf: black male personhood or black manhood? Is it that there is nothing within the black male camp worthy of defending? Is this not a curious kind of self-reflexive built in self-fulfilling prophesy of black male self-hatred being expressed by one of the leading black male intellectuals? How can (and why does) the best thinkers of the black male species so often (and reflexively) take such a position? Maybe it is the same reason they also all become Jack-leg preachers?
Second, why after a scathing analysis of and deconstruction of whiteness does he stop short of advocating the coup de grace recommended by White Studies scholars: abandoning whiteness (as we understand it today) altogether?
In the first instance, although his defense of black feminism is curious, it is also hauntingly consistent with Dyson's own shakily displayed persona. He is a "jack-leg" Baptist Minister; three times divorcee from black women; Ivy League professor, ex-welfare recipient, ex-street hustler, staunch defender of rappers and black street life, etc. -- existing in a social and professional no-man's land, a hostile milieu without firm ideology grounds on which to plant his own feet, straddling as he does so many fault lines in American society.
What comes through all too painfully clearly is that Dyson, as demonstrated by his own confused persona and inconsistent ideological stances, is himself in search of some solid uncontested, non-ideological ground upon which to plant his feet.
It is equally clear that the very intellect, which he so skillfully displays has cut him off (and aloose from) from the only ideological base he has: as a black man in racist America. This is the reality that Dyson seems to be trying desperately to escape and which seems to make him the most uncomfortable.
His way out of this dilemma is to adopt the same pose adopted by the much more harried white male, and pretend that there is no "authentic (positive) Black male" position to be had. His black maleness simply becomes, de facto, the backdrop (or to use his own term) the subtext upon which the larger drama of race is being played out in his own mind. What a curious (and unnecessary) stance for such a sharply honed intellect to take?
The problem with Dyson's own self-declared uncontested existential (non-)position is that THERE IS NO uncontested non-ideological ground to be had in American society: All of American social life is contested existential and ideological ground. All parts of America are at war with all of the other parts. And that is the existential reality with which all intellectuals, including black intellectuals, must deal.
Disingenuously juxtaposing and repositioning oneself next to black feminism does not "a whole human being make." That is, it neither resolves the dilemma between black men and black women, nor (and this is most important point) does it render black men more human and more alive, nor does it give black men a voice in the national dialogue.
Said more simply, it does not give black men a voice that is as independent as that of black women, and it does not make black men (more) acceptable human beings by denying their own existence in favor of praise for black feminism. In fact, arguably, it does just the opposite. It only exacerbates it and makes the author look as if he is trying too hard to be admitted in good standing to the only ethnic club his birth has already entitled him to.
The intra-ethnic sexual conflict within the black race remains and still runs very deep, with its own sordid genealogy. With black male intellectuals being too timid to speak openly and truthful for themselves or about this matter; and with black women being congenitally unable to do so, this leaves only the Willie Lynch memo, as apocryphal as it is, as the only honest analysis of the likely origin of black-on-black sexual strife available.
In short, wishful thinking, slight of hand, and moral smoke and mirrors does not solve Dyson's own existential problem as a black male intellectual in America cut away from his ethnic moorings. He still has no solid ground on which to stand either as a man, as an intellectual, or as a respected member of the black race.
The other problem with Dyson's analysis is that after exposing the fraud that has been cobbled together and that has evolved as white meaning, and thoroughly detailing its continuing destructive nature, Dyson warns against the complete dismantlement of it in favor of what he sees as a more humane form of whiteness. But he gives us no hints as to how whites are to get from being drunk on perks, privileges, entitlements, prerogatives and built-in advantages, to this more elevated state and meaning of whiteness. It seems to me Dyson's recommendation is just an escape through another open-ended fantasy, which if true, would just bring us full circle: That is how the white race, thorough white supremacy, got in this mess from the very beginning.
That said, although there are a lot of fireworks in these pieces, on the critical issues Dyson is always found wanting, or guilty of punting early. Nevertheless, he is an intellectual we cannot ignore. His pen is hot, and he has a lot to say, and says it well. Five stars
Speaking Power to Racism?.......2005-09-08
When all is said and done, living under the umbrella of a racist society takes a depressing toll on and is inevitably unsettling to us all. Judging by Michael Eric Dyson's Reader, it seems that the most psychic damage is done to the "so-called" black intellectual than to anyone else in our society.
It is a truism seldom expressed openly that since Freud, there are no more secrets: everything is transparent. Every hustler's hold card can now be peeked at.
Whites, hustling American society have no choice but to live out their lives retreating from the only thing that gives them a sense of meaning and identity, their only rallying cry to group solidarity: the long dark self-defining shadow of white supremacy. They have nowhere to hide; it defines them; it is the only (inner or outer) garment they have. It is who they are. It defines the parameters of their humanity.
They are condemned to defend its evils whether they want to or not: forever trying to innocently (and with great detachment and no sense of taint) explain why it happened; ever wishing and hoping that no one looks at all the tangible and intangible perks, advantages, prerogatives and privileges they still accrue from it. And pretending not to remember that this unmitigated evil of inhumanity remains the gravity that controls the American cultural universe.
From an early age, the indispensable life skill for whites (even today, as it was at the founding of this nation), is forgetting that everything meaningful they value and believe in has already been fatally compromised and corrupted by, or remains inextricably tied to a six hundred-year culture of racism.
Whites must learn at an early age to deny (or worse yet, how to be content living with) the fact that beyond racism, there is nothing else to "being white." Through racism, whites have raped their own humanity from the inside out: Nothing meaningful is left but excuses, bombast, false claims and the elevation and objectification of superiority by fiat. In the end, it is all so much smoke and mirrors. Racism has made American humanity a smoldering dessert. Only the outer shell of humane existence remains. Look at what happened in New Orleans with hurricane Katrina?
Why can't black intellectuals like Dyson and Cornel West come out and say this, straight up? Why are they always pussyfooting around the edges, teasing us; pretending that they want to be us; want to represent us. They want to be everything to us: They are all preachers, rappers, graduates of the "hood," etc. ad infinitum. [Freud would have a lot to say about all this internal confusion of our black intellectuals.]
I'll tell you why they cannot say it, because for blacks, the existential reality (and crisis) of living under the shadow of racism is even more complicated than for whites. We must, one and all, live out the duality W.E.B. du Bois warned us about; inevitably coming to realize and then eventually admitting to ourselves that we are both the "subjects" and "objects" of this "intentional man made American" evil.
The largest problem for blacks at all rungs of the class ladder (from Dyson's jailed brother to his own life in the ivory league towers) is coming to grips with the fact that being "in" America is not quite the same as being "of" America. And that quite frankly, there has yet to be worked out a formula for finally resolving this national existential dilemma.
Those at the bottom of that socio-economic ladder seem to have less of a problem accepting and then living with this reality. They know somehow through societal osmosis that most of America is a carefully orchestrated sham. There is no melting pot. America's puffed up and false claims about democracy, equality and freedom, etc. whether viewed in Dyson's terms of context, subtext, and pretext; or whether just intuited from everyday experiences on the streets are little more than expressions of white internal and personal weaknesses projected onto the larger national screen.
Poor blacks surrender to this racist reality because they accept the fact that they are just too weak to do otherwise. They don't get caught up in believing in any white nonsense or fantasizing about their own personal relationship to it; they just deal with it as best they can and go on trying to carve out a meaningful life.
However, for Black intellectuals and the black upper classes more generally, it is quite a more complicated matter. Even though they too must realize at some level that they will forever only be "in" and not "of" America, they are nevertheless desperately rehearsing for the day they will become full members in good standing in the great white hero system. This yearning is palpable and is a very ugly spectacle.
Pretending to forget that it cannot be done (at least not without the self-defeating result of advancing the causes of racism: look at Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas for example). These intellectuals forge ahead nevertheless, reciting their bios and singing out their resumes and curriculum vitas as they go, so that whites can clearly distinguish them from "those other blacks."
They are ever engaging in pseudo and meaningless debates on abstract ideas of democracy and political theory; engaging in literary criticism and matters of letters and the arts; serving as high officials in and consultants to the government and industry; and otherwise acting as if they were "under" rather than "outside" the great white tent. They do this only to prove to whites and to themselves that they are worthy of being dubbed "honorary whites," if only during the day.
The deeper they find themselves trapped in the belly of this self-annihilating existential beast, the more denial is required of them.
Michael Eric Dyson follows to a tee the well-worn script of the well-paid black intellectual, in residence. Intellectually he is the real deal: He is bright articulate, well read and OVER-understands the America of which he speaks.
But he too is intellectually and culturally, conflicted (and need I say compromised; that is bought and paid for). The result is a confusing kind of self-censorship. Like his conflicted mentor and intellectual hero Cornel West, Dyson knows where the waters edge is and knows when and how to pull his punches. Although these essays are VERY GOOD they are nothing if not a study in "how to pull ones intellectual punches."
He doesn't want to "speak power to racism;" so much as to "go on tour with it." Like "three card monty," racism is the only real game in town and the name of the game if you are "the token" in the ivory towers of the university is to milk that cow man, milk it; don't unveil it; don't help destroy it; don't fight it; don't make the white power structure too uncomfortable with it; just milk it.
Say anything you like so long as you don't shake the money tree too hard. Don't say "white racism;" say racism. Admit that there was racism in the past but only progress today. Be politically correct: there is no difference between racism and all of the other "isms." Put them all into the same bag. Stay on the abstract plane, don't get to specific and everything will be all right. The black masses won't know the difference anyway --especially if you continue to preach, rap, swagger and praise Jesus and some black woman for all of your success. If you do this all will be right with the world.
And don't forget, if your rhetoric allows whites to sleep at night, to continue enjoying their ill-gotten gains with equanimity, you too might yet get your ticket punched and who knows, you might even end up permanently under the tent of the "Great White Hero System" yourself.
Five stars.
blah.......2005-08-17
echoing the first reviewer...i must say that in all earnest dyson is certifiably...insane. what a moron. knocking cosby for his incisive and right-on comments trying to wake up the black community from its slumber? dumb.
Customer Reviews:
Good, but not great.......2002-01-04
Packed to the gills with both essential information and military minutae, GURPS Special Ops would make a useful resource book for newcomers to military roleplaying. However, there are better books on the market. Although SJGames has taken a good stab at the field, the genre already has a surplus of good sourcebooks. Older roleplayers will remember Twilight: 2000 and its exhaustive cataloguing of military detail. Like T2K, GURPS Special Ops suffers from a problem endemic to roleplaying in general: Americano-centrism. While this book gives us exhaustive detail on the various shapes and forms of US Special Forces (and the various confusing duplications of capabilites), information on non-US forces (the UK, Russia, Israel, France etc ...) is sparse and, in parts, incorrect. While GURPS may be generic in terms of rules, it fails to be generic in terms of nationality.
Perfect companion for GURPS High-tech in a military campaign.......2000-07-24
HT is a superb sourcebook on special ops, for military campaigns ranging from the high-power cinematic to the dark and dirty real world Spec ops. It is mainly adressed to the last fifty years of history, but has an insight of spec ops through the history, as well as the usual crossover recommendations. It's divided in five parts. Creation of spec ops characters, with templates mainly for modern genre, with new skills (very specialized skills), advantages and disadvantages, very well crafted, because you got a rather nice quantity of points to spent but the characters don't end being like superbeigns but spec ops soldiers with a list of skills as impressive as necessary. A chapter devoted to spec ops through the history and late spec ops units, organizations and terrorist or revolutionary groups. The sidebars illustrates the main text with a handful of famous operations and topics related to the groups presented, not only the big successes but more gritty aspects of the business too. Another chapter, the shorter and poorer, here is where GURPS High-Tech can make the difference, is devoted to equipment and weapons. Another chapter goes to spec ops procedures, common terms, tactics, management of mercenary groups and the like. The last chapter is a short introduction to Spec Ops Campaigns and serves as a fast intro to Spec Ops gaming, not the best I have seen but not the worst.
Amazon.com
TCP/IP for Dummies aims to decode the protocols and executables that underlie the Internet and other networks that comply with its data communications standards. By combining how-to information that explains how to configure TCP/IP networking on various Microsoft Windows systems (including Windows 2000) with plenty of academic material on how Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) work, the authors deliver considerable value to their readers. There ought to be TCP/IP configuration coverage of Linux and Mac OS, too--TCP/IP is, after all, ideal for heterogeneous networking--but the detailed information about the stack's workings offsets the hands-on shortcomings.
The authors spend a bit too long explaining elementary stuff about the Internet. Still, they unravel Internet phenomena very clearly and explain, for example, that FTP is a protocol, a service, and an application in complete TCP/IP suites. Dummies books are big on the use of analogies to explain technical subjects; this book uses food and a dinnerware set as an analogy for the TCP/IP software, and sometimes distracts from its educational objective by struggling to make the comparison fit. Regardless, the authors succeed in explaining an important and complex set of internetworking technologies to readers who have no prior TCP/IP experience. You'll appreciate the background that this book provides if you're planning to configure a small TCP/IP network or work your way toward more elaborate jobs. --David Wall
Topics covered: The TCP/IP stack and its applications, explained in terms that--while not oversimplified--will be understood easily by someone who has little networking knowledge. Fundamentals of networking, client-server communications, TCP/IP protocols (including SMTP, HTTP, POP3, FTP, and various routing protocols), Windows configuration procedures, and name resolution all get attention. A nice section explains IPv6 well.
Book Description
TCP/IP is always a hot topic because it is and always will be the glue that holds the Internet and the World Wide Web together. To be well connected (network-wise, that is), sooner or later you have to become familiar with TCP/IP. So if you want to understand what it is, what it does, what it’s for, why you need it, and what to do with it, but you just don’t know where to start – this book is for you. If you have to install and set up TCP/IP on your computer at home or on lots of computers for your company, you'll find lots of Hands-On sections that take you through the process step by step.
TCP/IP For Dummies, 5th Edition, is both an introduction to the basics and a reference to help you use TCP/IP applications and tools on all kinds of computers connected to networks. Here are some of the many subjects that this book covers:
- Uncovering the relationships among TCP/IP, the Net, and the Web
- Exploring client/server and how it is the foundation of TCP/IP
- Installing and configuring TCP/IP and its applications on clients and servers
- Understanding intranets, extranets, and virtual private networks (VPNs)
- Building and enforcing security
- Boldly going to the next generation: IPv6
If you’re concerned about the security of your data – and who isn’t? – don’t miss the practical security tips in this book, including a Quick Start Security Guide. You can read about advanced security topics, including the security protocols that are part of TCP/IP. You also find out how to use encryption, authentication, digital certificates, and signatures. And if you’re interested in e-commerce, walk through a secure Internet credit card transaction.
Customer Reviews:
Not useful.......2006-03-16
This book does not deliver on it's cover title. I bought this text thinking it will help me learn the basic working details of TCP/IP. I was totally dissappionted.
Nuts and bolts of the Internet.......2004-02-20
I would agree with some of the reviewers, and say that it is wrongly titled as "TCP/IP for Dummies", in fact I was suprised by their title and what I actually read. However, I enjoyed the book because I had also an interest in the workings of the Internet. The authors state in the intro that "The thing about the TCP/IP communcations protcol is that it's fundamentally tied in with networking...So, we've included a bit about networks and The Internet..." So it did not delve into great details of TCP/IP, but then again it is an very introductory text. So it worked well in just the right amount of TCP/IP detail with a great thorough introduction to The Internet technology.
As to the accuracy of some statements, I don't know because I am not an expert. However, the writers are not dummies, in fact, when someone can take a difficult and complex subject, and bring it down to a layperson's understanding it often is a sign that they really understand what they are talking about.
Furthermore, this is an excellent introduction to the workings of the Internet. I had a very incomplete understanding of the hardware/software of the internet, it helped me greatly to better understand many of the terms that I've heard discussed in techie circles. True, the dinner plate allegory did not help at all, but when they discussed matters in a more simple technical way, it was great. I give it a **** four-star because although the organization may not have been perfect and the title is slightly misleading, it still did an excellent job of explaining the internet software/hardware in a thorough fashion.
Book that will satisfy no one.......2004-02-16
I was looking for a book that explained the nuts and bolts of TCP/IP. Instead the book dedicates six chapters or so to TCP/IP. The rest of it is a superficial treatment that a new computer user might find useful, but that contains little material for the intermediate user (and only intermediate users, not beginners, would even know what TCP/IP is, much less want to read a book titled "TCP/IP for Dummies.")
For example, page 197 lists plug-ins for Web browsers, such as Shockwave, Flash, and RealOne Player. Useful for a rank beginner, but not for an intermediate user wanting to learn about TCP/IP. Page 188 explains how to "understand URLs," giving the example of http://www.ibm.com. Again, not very useful for the intermediate user.
Meanwhile, there are some TCP/IP basics that are never explained. Ports are not explained very well, and ICMP receives barely a mention. (However, page 64 tells me to "see RFCs 1256 and 2463 for more information on ICMP. This is not at all helpful.)
Some of the information is dated or, worse, just plain wrong. One passage suggests that gigabit Ethernet hardware costs a fortune, which is no longer true. Page 298 states that NetBIOS is a "Windows proprietary protocol." It is not; IBM originally developed NetBIOS.
Overall, the first few chapters of this book are much too technical for new Internet users, but barely meaty enough for someone who wants to understand TCP/IP in depth. All the remaining chapters are fine for new Internet users, but mere filler for anyone experienced enough to understand what a URL is. This confused mishmash of a book will satisfy no one.
A Great intro to the subject.......2003-04-04
I had heard that previous versions were so-so, but this edition had everything a non-expert would need to understand the basics of the TCP/IP protocal. It easily explained the differnce between IMAP and POP3; how FTP works; HTML vs XML; and the section on security (SSL, SSH, etc.) was excellent, as was the hardware section.
It truly is dummied down, and don't rely on it if you really want to configure telnet in a linux environment, but for basics it's excellent.
more confusing than i thought.......2002-10-31
I was anxious to read this book, hoping to learn more about IP and networking in general.
Some of it hit home, but a lot of it went too far off the technology deep end.
I did like the tone of the book, as it kept some very technical things light, but overall, wouldn't recommend it.
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