Operating Systems Books

There is so much in this book that I can relate to, having started my own company around the same time in Silicon Valley (although in software). John and Kyle made the same mistakes that many entrepreneurs thankfully make - they followed their passion instead of their senses, and didn't buckle under the pressure and the unknown. One other valuable lesson from this book -- document your process. This is a great way to share your successes and your mistakes with others. I wish we had more stories like this when I was working on my MBA - something more than the dry, non-applicable case studies stuck in front of us. And John and Kyle also provided one other important gem: how to save a few bucks a month at the neighborhood gym. Thanks guys.

I was in a book store and I was attracted to the title and the cover color. I picked up the book and read the jacket and I was hooked. I hardly ever buy non-technical books -especially non-fiction. But I was hooked after reading the jacket so I bought the book and assiduously read and enjoyed it. Also I am a Wharton alumnus. I also took classes with Len Lodish.

Eric Ericsson

The book spells out tips for starting a business (use credit cards instead of banks) and the mistakes the authors made along the way (when do you enter the market). You can even contact them after reading and talk to them about your ideas. The encouraging aspect of the book is that while they are starting their business, they spoke to their classmates who were making $200,000 on wall street and working for the dot-coms, but John and Kyle were not discouraged. I am happy that they were able to take an idea like a computer mouse shaped like a gold club and turn it into THEIR company. Congrats guys!

The Mousedriver Chronicles is the story of 2 Wharton MBA's who take a business plan developed on their entrepreneurship course at Wharton and decide to make a go of it. In 1999 they turn away high paying jobs at investment banks and over funded dot.com startups to go it alone.

Their idea: to make and sell a computer mouse that looks like the head of a golf driver.

They fund the venture themselves, find a manufacturer in Hong Kong, move to San Francisco (to be part of all the start up vibe in The Bay area) and run the business from the kitchen of their rented flat.

Their story is brilliantly relayed as they grapple with manufacturing, marketing and distribution hassles. The single product focus of their new company, named Platinum Concepts Inc., makes for a wonderful entrepreneurial story with excellent lessons about what it takes to succeed as a self funded start up. The two founders quickly learn that they need more than the theoretical knowledge acquired on their MBA at Wharton; they need to be street wise. They experiment with different mechanisms to make things happen and end up categorizing their execution strategies as follows:
Plan A: Make use of their business school network and contacts
Plan B: Hit the streets and the shops to find a creative solution
Plan C: Work the Yellow Pages

More often than not, plan B and C worked far better than plan A.

One of the founders, John Lusk, began sharing their entrepreneurial adventure with friends and family via a monthly email called "The Insider". The Insider was a real, often humorous, sometimes highly insightful newsletter about their adventure. The insider subscriber list grew and grew. MBA lecturers began distributing The Insider as prescribed reading. In 2001 Inc. Magazine featured a cover story on the company and its two founders. The Inc. cover story entitled "An American Start-up" focuses on the impact of The Insider e-mail newsletter. The email newsletters were used as the foundation for the book published in 2001 entitled The "Mousedriver Chronicles".
The company has since been shut down but the Mousedriver website still serves as a portal for entrepreneurs and copies of The Insider newsletter can be found in PDF format on the website: www.mousedriver.com

MouseDriver is about two guys who graduate from Wharton with MBAs in 1999 (the heart of the internet boom) and start a business manufacturing and selling a computer mouse that looks like the head of a driver golf club, turning down high paying jobs at dotcoms, investment banks, consulting firms etc.

As a small business consultant (Transcendence Consulting, LLC tcllc.net) I can tell you right now that if you are looking to start a busines, buy this book TODAY. It is an amazing look at the entire process of starting a business, from the ability to jump head first, manage yourself during
the highs and lows, deal with self doubt and solve an endless supply of problems. It is an easy read that will take you no time at all to complete.

Thick Oracle book which is intended for developers who might need to understand the Oracle internals and administration parts besides writing SQL. It's useful for them working in other database also as the general database concept is simlar. Developers can now have more DBA knowledges after reading before on-going performing some DBA task.

Gr8 stuff for all the Oracle ppl.

A true masterpiece, and a great way to learn Oracle concepts. No more to say.

I have been an Oracle DBA for about six years and this book is still the one I turn to when looking for deeper insight into tough Oracle problems. The author recently published a new book on 9i and 10g and that one is also quite excellent. When it comes to analysis and clear writing style, no one can beat Tom Kyte for excellence. Highly recommended.

I bought this book on cheap clearance after the original publisher went out of business -- the best $12 I ever invested. Remembering even 10% of this book makes you better than 90% of Oracle developers, modelers and architects. Mr. Kyte's real world experience and reliance on solid examples instead of folklore makes this light-years ahead of any other Oracle book; it's the only Oracle book I re-read regularly. If you can afford only one Oracle book, this is it. And you may not need any other.

Very handy cookbook reference for my office bookshelf. I've used it a number of times, and it's more than paid for itself in expediting regularly-scheduled inquiries of our AD structure here at GEICO HQ.

Excellent reference if you work with AD on a regular basis either as an admin or a developer. Each "how to" offers methods for manually performing a specific task as well as (where possible) how to automate the task using code. Should be on every Windows admin/developer's desk.

Overall, this is a great book for reference.

There are a number of areas where I think the book falls short - all of the scripts are very hard coded scripts that don't tell you how to do some functions that would make their scripts actually useful (like "pull the list of users with attributes from a tab-delimited file and create them" or something similar, this would make mass creation of users actually useful, instead of "create user1, user2, user3, etc..."). I think that the writers expect you to be a VB expert (or at least close to it) if you're going to actually make the vb scripts useful.

Most of the scripts are "How to use a script to do the same functions that you can already do in AD with ADUC or another MMC", but I think that the most important thing for me about the book is what it inspires me to think of doing. Things that MS doesn't necessarily expect you to do. I'm still not seeing a way to add sidHistory to an object (MS does it with another applet - there is a way...), but there are so many things in the book that just have me thinking about how you can implement changes to an environment that MS says you can't do. What they really mean is "You can't do that with the GUI tools that we provide you".

I am so glad that this book was recommended to me by a guy I took a class on scripting from. I use this book everyday (almost). I even took it on vacation with me for light reading.

Firstly a warning, this is the second edition and covers Windows 2003. There is a third edition that covers the newer OS. I bought this book by mistake and it's too big (postage would be too expensive) to return. So buy with care.

This is a big book in terms of pages but the content is less than stellar. Don't expect to find too much on designing AD in real world situations such as integration with networking topologies and devices. Nor expect to find details on integrating AD with other Microsoft technology such as SharePoint. No this cookbook is really an administrator companion, and I think it does a pretty decent job in that but not more.

This book is a must have, I have recommended to all my friends and family. Kudos to the Author for publishing such a wonderful book.

I have read may books on WFP and this is the one I go to when I need to figure out how to do something. Mine is full of tape flags, post-it notes and dog-eared pages because it gets used all the time. Another book, Essential Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) (Microsoft .NET Development Series) is also very good, but it isn't a refrence book like this one. If you want to program in WPF you need Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed bu Adam Nathan!

I had a lot of fun with this book, and it provided me with a fantastic foundation of knowledge for implementing WPF technology in my applications.

It's organized well, in that important tips are easy to find (no digging through paragraphs to find answers to common problems), and conversely thorough in detail; when more information is required. So it is quite versitile, whatever your reading mood. Whether it's casually flipping through, or digging deeper in to advanced topics.

The book's written very well, and most notably with a passion. The writer explains concepts clearly to the reader, and I'd highly recommended it to anyone interested in learning about this technology.

WPF is a remarkably inconsistent tool including contradictory settings, rules that only work some of the time, confusing shortcuts, and other inconsistencies. This book covers so much detail, that the many quirks of WPF sometimes get in the way. It might have been better if the book ignored some of the more arcane details. At times it gives so much information that things are more confusing than necessary.

Still, the book does cover a vast amount of information. If you just want an introduction to WPF, it may be a lot more than you're looking for, but if you want to know all about the weird details, this book includes a lot.

I ordered this book and Pro WPF in C# 2008 (Mathew MacDonald) at the same time. I read WPF Unleashed first because I saw the reviews on Amazon.com. I thought, wow, great book. Then I read Pro WPF in C# 2008.

I found Pro WPF in C# 2008 to be a much better book than WPF Unleashed. It's thicker, has more content, and dives much deeper. It also covers .Net 3.5 because it's newer.

Don't get me wrong, they are both excellent books and I recommend them both. But if you really want to understand core WPF concepts, Pro WPF in C# 2008 is the better choice.

I recently purchased this book based on the rave reviews even with an updated second edition off the press. I can honestly say that this book is Awesome in detail and explanation and is still extremely relevant to understanding the how too's and processes involved in routing tcp/ip. The most amazing feature about this book is how well explained and the book makes topics that would normally seem dificult or confusing easily understood, in other words grandma could learn how routing tcp/ip works from reading this book!

Brandon, Rome, GA

If any book was ever considered as the MUST HAVE BIBLE for Interior Routing Protocols - then Jeff Doyle's first effort on IGPs is THE book (how many cliché's do you want in one sentence)!! The book goes through at a very even pace - dissecting and describing the majority of both open-standard IGPs (OSPF, RIP and a little on ISIS) and Cisco-proprietary IGPs (IGRP and it's beefier brother - EIGRP). The book also includes some invaluable appendixes - including tutorials on working with Binary and hex.

But let's focus on the book's main reason for being - explaining IGPs. Take for instance OSPF - one of the most popular and widely implemented routing protocols in use today. On page 416-417, the book correctly discusses virtual links as a type of network type. The OSPF chapter typically employs 5-8 routers (and shows the required configs). Such a daunting exercise may at first seem like overkill, but Doyle is able to show how (and why) the all these router configs are necessary (to show, for instance, how they interact with or whether a DR or BDR). The book does have it's typos though, as the table on page 484 incorrectly documents stub networks as allowing type 5 and 7 LSAs (not so - thus a stub!)

I cannot imagine there are many CCIEs out there that do not have this book on their bookshelf.

I give this book 5 pings out of 5:
!!!!!

Great book for understanding IGP in details.

I am reviewing Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 (ISBN 1578700418), part of the CCIE Professional Development Series from Cisco Press. This book is widely regarded as part of the "Holy Trinity" of CCIE preparatory books. In addition to CCIE prep, it is also highly valued as an essential desk reference for anyone pursuing a career as a senior-level routing engineer. The author, Jeff Doyle, having written the two most recognized tomes on IP Routing, is a respected authority on the topic. His writing style is very clear and not at all difficult to read, which sets him apart from a lot of the authors in the "high-end routing book" category.

The book is part of a set of two books. TCP/IP Volume 1 contains coverage of the major interior routing protocols (RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF & ISIS) and follows it with coverage of route redistribution, filtering and mapping. TCP/IP Volume 2 covers the BGP exterior gateway protocol and follows it with coverage of advanced IP routing issues. As someone who's come up through the CCNA-to-CCNP-to-CCIE-candidate path, I recognized all of the topics from the BSCI curriculum. All this book really does is takes them to another level of depth. I highly recommend this path of coming at the CCIE, because unless you've done it all and seen it all, there's way too much information to take in during a single reading. Reading the BSCI book first gets you familiar with all of the topics, so that you're not overwhelmed when reading the Doyle books.

While many pan this book as being outdated since it was written in 1998, my contention is that all of the covered topics are still fair game for the CCIE qualifying written exam and the book still retains all of its original value. There are a lot of topics which are on the test which are not in Doyle's books, but if you look at the CCIE blueprint, the topics covered in the books map exactly to the topics in the IP Routing & IP Multicast sections of the blueprint. You can't treat any book as being a one stop shop for CCIE preparation. That's impossible. The book would be the size of my desk. I would actually contend that, on the next rewrite, they should break the 2 volume set into 3 volumes, one for the interior protocols, one for BGP by itself, and one for all of the advanced routing issues and multicast. This would make the volumes a bit less daunting and also somewhat easier to carry.

But, carry-ability issues aside, this is a very good book. It takes all of the topics to the degree of depth which you would expect for a CCIE-level book and explains things in a way that doesn't lose the reader. I had to work to keep the examples straight in my head, but no one said becoming a CCIE was easy. On the downside, the book contains no disc. This is unfortunate, because I always like to have the book on PDF. Also, it would be nice to have the review questions and answers put into a question bank. The book is also missing the "Do I Know This Already" section for each chapter, which is present in all of Cisco Press' certification guides. I realize that this is probably due to the fact that this is more of a desk reference / learning book than an official certification guide. However, as someone who's studying for an exam, I always like as many free practice questions as I can get.

I give Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 a 5 on my 5 ping rating scale and look forward to reading Volume 2.
!!!!!

Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 by Jeff Doyle (ISBN 1578700418) is an advanced level book on the theory and practice of routing and its implementation in Cisco routers. The 1026-page book (with a 50+ page index - always an important part of any technical book) is packed with useful information, example network architectures, and sample commands and their corresponding outputs to help the reader get a thorough grasp of real-life application of the theory.

The book is meant for working professionals in the network and routing field. Part I presents some basic routing theory along with the routing types - static and dynamic. This section, as in other books, is meant as a review for those seasoned engineers who have been working in the field for some time. It also helps to bring up to speed the other readers who may lack the necessary background. Part II contains the real substance of the book. It covers the interior routing protocols in detail including RIP 1 & 2, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, and IS-IS. The material presented in these chapters is definitely solid enough to give a detailed understanding of the subject matter and provide the necessary knowledge to allow one to troubleshoot the problems that creep up in maintaining networks running these routing protocols. Part III presents the issue relating to the optimization of networks running these routing protocols such as filtering and redistribution. Part IV consists of the appendices.

The most useful part of the book in my opinion is the examples and sample outputs. These really help the reader to understand the details on implementing the concepts presented in the book. Jeff presents a sample network architecture and uses that architecture to explain various aspects of the topic being discussed. For example, to illustrate various aspects of EIGRP routing and load balancing, a 5-router mesh architecture is presented followed by a detailed discussion of concepts such as succession, load sharing, route transitions and updates, etc. This approach really helps in understanding all aspects of a particular topic with concrete examples to relate to.

I took hold of this book not to help in preparing for the CCIE but to assist in the understanding of routing protocols that I use in my work life. As such, I can not comment on the applicability of this book to preparing for the CCIE exam but as for its application to real world scenarios, this book far exceeds any other on the topic of routing in the Cisco environment.

I am really impressed with the material presented in this book. The book is thorough and detailed in its coverage of interior routing protocols. Jeff Doyle is an expert in his field and this book proves it. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest, I give an enthusiastic 5 to Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 by Jeff Doyle. I can't wait to get my hands on Volume II.

The book is well organized and very easy to read. It captures both the novice as well as those who have been working in WPF since beta (or is that CTP). The only complaints I have for the book are really just complaints on WPF in general. A lot of the material in the book (as well as WPF in general) focuses on making fairly outlandish applications (getting all the wizz bang features and animations). What I find lacking are items like validation, threading (when having a long background task), and items more akin to Windows Forms development. This book was an invaluable tool while I put together my first WPF application.

A quick background of my skills prior to reading the book so you know where I'm coming from:
- Strong: C++, Win32, 2D UI
- Learning: C#, .NET, WPF, XAML, XML

Being extremely anxious to dig in to WPF, I was seeking a book that would hold my hand through the process but by the end, leave no stones unturned. This book comes close.

My first attempt at learning was "Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed" by Adam Nathan. I quickly became frustrated with the book because I was regularly feeling lost. You know, like when you are conversing with a really intelligent person who has a hard time helping you connect the dots. I do recommend Adam's book as a supplement as it's got good material and is in full color. After reading the reviews for "Programming WPF" by Sells & Griffiths I took the leap.

I read the book cover to cover minus 3 chapters: 3D, Interoperability and Async/Multithreaded -- about 700 of 800 pages. Usually books this fat have lots of useless pages. Not this book, no sir, which just goes to show how much there is to learn about WPF and XAML. In a word, the book is brilliant, written for experienced programmers who want to learn WPF and XAML.

It has the same feel as Petzold's Win 3.x books, i.e. Light-hearted, start easy and built to a powerful crescendo as the chapters progress. The latter chapters are no more difficult to digest than the previous chapters, but do build upon previous chapters. That said, I was extremely grateful that the book didn't have a grand project that was slowly built upon chapter by chapter; code examples mostly stood on their own and were plentiful (and they worked as printed!)

As noted above, I know very little about WinForms, and WPF is the obvious successor. Though parallels were duly noted, I was thrilled that there were not constant sidebars saying "Hey Mr. WinForms! Everything's OK! This is just new stuff and you can handle it. Rah! Rah! Rah!" As the authors make abundantly clear from page 1, WPF is light years ahead of WinForms.

As noted above, WPF and XAML are big topics so be prepared to get up and stretch your legs a lot, hold you head frequently and doubt the wisdom of learning new things.

On the down side, the book is weighted a bit too heavily towards XAML for my tastes. Since C# can do absolutely everything (and more) that XAML can do, I wish there were more dual examples that show how XAML does it and then how C# does it. There are examples like this but not enough. This would satisfy the curiousity of developers who wonder about how XAML "magically" achieves things.

Another gripe, now that I am attempting to apply what I have learned: I am frequently having to turn to a Google search to find details not present in the book. For example, the section about event bubbling covers good ground but I immediately had a problem when trying to use bubbling: I was attempting to use it with sibling elements and that does not work but (as far as I can tell) this was not noted in the book. It feels as though the book was not field tested.

And a final gripe: The index is sparse. I am regularly having to pencil in items.

Some brief notes:
- I really hope this book evolves along with WPF's evolution
- The material seemed fresh (as of Oct 2008) except the Silverlight appendix which has aged since Silverlight 2.0 has been released
- The corresponding errata website does not seem to be updated regularly (though I didn't encounter many editing problems)
- Even though the book only has a dozen pages of color plates, you won't feel deprived as the examples will light up your display in all sorts of fun ways.

I have both WPF books by Chris Anderson and Adam Nathan. I read initial chapters of both of them but never got so excited to continue reading and got astray into LINQ and other stuff. Then I bought this one from Chris Sells and all I can say is it is much better than both Anderson and Adam book and the book keeps you engaged making you eager to find out what next in very simple terms and wonderful example. I loved the way the data binding chapter was explained and am hoping to finish this soon.

Great Job Sells and Ian.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that after diving into WPF back when it was known as "Avalon", I haven't even touched WPF since. So I finally needed to suck it up, get started, and learn WPF.

As somebody new to WPF, I just have to give a huge "Thank You" to both Chris and Ian. This book is very entertaining and the quality of the writing between both Chris and Ian is just tremendous. The pace of the book is perfect and the teaching style is one that any developer can relate to.

As a Technical Evangelist working for Microsoft, I think that every "Evangelist" in the tech industry can learn from Chris and Ian on how to tell a compelling story that developers can relate to and "grok". We evangelists are all-too-willing to simply explain the technical details of an API while completely forgetting to answer the "why" (let alone telling a compelling story to suck people in). This is yet another area that this book excels at.

I can say with full confidence that this book is the first book I recommend to anybody wanting to dive into WPF. Enjoy!

Jason Olson, Technical Evangelist, Visual Studio & the .NET Framework
[...]

Writing a programming book is not an easy thing to do -- I know, because I've done it myself. And I have to say that I'm really impressed with the job that Chris Sells and Ian Griffiths have done with "Programming WPF". This is one of the best programming books I've ever read (and I've read a lot of them).

For a programming book to be good, it's not enough for it to simply contain all of the information that you need to know. If that information doesn't stick to your brain, then the book hasn't done it's job. If you want the information to stick, then the book has to be interesting to read. It has to have a lot of clear examples that show you real-world applications without extraneous fluff. And to be really effective, all of that should be done with a little bit of style and wit.

And I'm really pleased to say that "Programming WPF" does all of those things. I recently needed a refresher on WPF, so I just spent a lot of time over the last few weeks going through the book very carefully. And I have to say that I'm really impressed. It's engaging, interesting and they chose really good examples. And it's witty! (You'd be amazed at how the occasional chuckle keeps a reader from getting that "eyes glazed over" feeling that far too many books induce.)

I know from experience -- believe me, I know! -- just how hard it is to pull that off. And they did it with style. So first of all, congratulations to Chris and Ian for doing a great job. And second, if you're a C# developer looking for a good, hands-on way to learn WPF, I highly recommend "Programming WPF".

I have a friend that recommended me this book and I have to agree with him that this was a very well written book. Don't let the fact that the title says "Windows NT" discourage you from getting this book. There is a lot of useful information in this book that is still standard practice for scripting in Server 2003. Probably one of the few and only outdated commands in the book is the AT command that was replaced by SCHTASK. Even then, the author goes into detail on how these different commands work and how to use them in your work environment to you benefit. I recommend this book as a learning tool and as a reference for my fellow scripting brethren.

Great book on NT shell commands that Microsoft doesn't even document. Not even "command /?" gives you any help.

Great for reference and to learn.

Although this book was authored in 1998, it is still as relavent today with Windows Server 2003 as it was when Windows NT 4.0 was first released. The fact is that the Command Shell hasn't changed all that much over the years and Timothy Hill's book remains the best guide to using and writing command scripts that I could ever recommend. And with Windows Server 2003's push to be able to do everything from the command line that one can do from the GUI, it's even more important to fully understand how the Windows Command Shell works.

Windows NT Shell Scripting is less about Windows NT than it is about how to write shell scripts. It covers the details of using the Command Shell in interactive mode, its configuration and how the 32-bit Command Shell differs from the 16-bit DOS box. Then it delves into the structure and syntax of the Command Shell language, providing a clear understanding of how the program control features such as IF and FOR work. Finally, it shows you how to create sophisticated shell scripts using the internal commands and external command-line utilities included with Windows and their Resource Kits.

Not everything in this book has survived the test of time. The old task scheduler using the AT command, though still supported in current version of Windows, has been mostly replaced by more powerful Scheduled Tasks of Windows 2000 and later. And you will want to supplement this book with a modern reference of the utility programs available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (such as OReilly's "Windows Server 2003 In A Nutshell"). Yet this represents only a small part of the book and majority of material stands up very well. Certainly there is no better and more in-depth tutorial for building command scripts than Timothy Hill's book.

I like this book because unlike many technical books, the first three chapters aren't a pedestrian introduction to the basic fundamentals. This book spends chapter 1 with insight, similar to the way Applied Cryptography immediately gives you knowledge. I'm an experienced NT command shell user, and this book was valuable for me as well.
The DOS shell has become a requirement and skill relegated to the background by the direction of Microsoft curriculum, this book explains it and teaches it.

The authors instructions are easy to follow, without doting like the Teach Yourself "whatever" in 24 hour books, Tim Hill doesn't waste your time, or your money.

If you have a bit of programming experience, this book together with access to the NT Resource Kit tools will provide you with the foundation for doing almost anything you could imagine within Windows NT Shell Scripting.

The book can be used both as a tutorial and a reference for Windows NT scripting and gives good examples of the commands, tools and concepts covered. For Windows NT, this book does the job as your Shell Scripting Bible in less than 400 pages.

Since Windows NT 4.0, a lot has happened in the Windows scripting field though. With the release of Windows 2000 and the subsequent Windows XP and .NET Server, shell scripting has become much more powerful. A second edition of this book covering the new commands and tools would be most welcome. Until one exists, you might also want to look at newer books covering shell scripting for operating systems based on the Windows NT kernel.

You might also want to look at other, often more powerful ways to script your Windows NT-based environment. For that matter I recommend looking at other books covering WSH (Windows Script Host), ADSI and WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation).

This is a really great book on BGP and Internet Architecture. The explanation of BGP at the protocol level is great. More importantly though is its explanation and examples of using eBGP / iBGP with an IGP.

I've heard it criticized as being dated and too Cisco specific. Though it is Cisco specific, it's still very relevant. I would start with this book and read past NANOG presentations on introductory BGP if I wanted to learn how the Internet works.

Internet Routing Architectures is considered the BGP4 handbook and rightfully so. I found the overall composition easy to read. Even though the book is aimed at varying levels of expertise, it does not assume any level of knowledge in TCP/IP or routing. It explains all the concepts, from the simplest one right up to the most demanding, in a fluent way. The book works hard not to withhold protocol details and design-oriented information, while at the same time realizing that building general understanding comes first. An in depth look at BGP is supplied here from the theory aspect, if you need actual configurations and commands I suggest also:

Cisco BGP-4 Command and Configuration Handbook : CCIE Professional Development

This is a good book, let there be no doubt about it. But in my opinion it goes beyond the scope of the 682-661 exam for which purpose I bought it. However, every ISP backbone routing engineer should have this book with him and use it as a dictionary in case of.

This is the best BGP-4 book out there in preparation for the CCIE. Do not waste your money on others this is the one that you need. It takes you from the beginnings of the Internet to the current uses of the protocol. This book is a must have.

I have always felt that I am part of the small minority that just does not see the beauty of this book if studying for the CCIE. I have, for years, read other's comments on the how Halabi's "Internet Routing Arch" is a `must have', yet I still have not found a similar reason why. While I do feel that the book does (probably) the best job at explaining BGP and how to implement BGP in a Cisco-centric world, I have not discovered the value for the CCIE. I would much rather spend my time with CiscoPress's "Routing TCP/IP" Volume 2, by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer DeHaven Carroll than this book.

One item of concern, there is a noticable amount of trivial errors in this book that can lead to disaster if implemented incorrectly. For example:

Page 106 - "...any traffic that has an origin OR destination that does not belong to the local AS." This clearly should be an AND, not OR.

Page 315 - "You can also specify a PREFIX list..." - I believe this should be a filter list, not a prefix list.

And then there are places where the book is too opinionated - for example - page 206 "Many operators choose to filter dynamically learned defaults to avoid situations in which traffic ends up where it is not supposed to be." I do not feel this is true, and can think of multiple times when not filtering the advertised default route may just end up being the worst option. In fact, I do not feel either configuration is the right configuration to admit or condone, as the wrong configuration can have disastrous effects.

I still have to give this book 4 stars - simply because of it's utilitarian value and overwhelming sense of loyalty given to this book by others. But I don't reach for this book too often.

I give this book 4 pings out of 5:
!!!.!

Many networking books I read (or other books on similarly technical subjects) have a tendency to get bogged down in technical minutia that distracts from the big picture. Not so here. Cormer does an excellent job of getting all the important information out there and explains the common networking protocols, what goes into them, and what they do, without losing the reader. Do not think that this is a superficial view though - I've been in the field for several years now and still use it as a reference on occasion.

I purchased the book titled: Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol.1: Principles, Protocols, and Architecture (4th Edition)for a class. The book arrived ahead of schedule, marking the service amazon provided as second to none. Keep up the great work.

Want to really, really, really know TCP-IP???

Read this book and you will know it cold.

Look for the 5th edition of this same book.
4th edition is much older than the newer 5th edition.

I knew nothing about TCP/IP. As a result, I bought a book "learn TCP/IP in 24 hours" and trashed it after I bought this book, no more 24 hour books. I had no idea what routing is and were to start looking for documents on the internet. This book is scientific and puts it all together. Each chapter lists the RFC that he relied on so you know were the stuff came from. The book is not boring; the author is excellent in explaining ideas. He covers ICMP, GGP, OSPF, EGP, DHCP, DNS, BOOTP, ARP and more. I feel I have accomplished something big by reeading this book. If you are not a beginner in routing, then look at the RFCs they are the source.

This book "flows" easily and it does a great job covering the meteoric rise of both Bill Gates and Microsoft. The narrative is never dull and both, the man and his company, are given a fair treatment. This book was published in 1993 and a lot of interesting stuff remains to be told. Wish the authors would team up for a sequel. This is a well written and authoritative account of Microsoft and its founder.

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire

This book is a must-read for people who consider themselves ambitious and driven. It taught me the importance of single-minded drive and determination, coupled with a passion for the line of work one is in. IT is a tough line of work to be in - jobs could be outsourced anytime, skills become redundant quickly and there isn't the glamor or get-fabulously-rich possibility of finance or investment banking... but this book demonstrates that as long as you are passionate about what you do, there is always room at the top. Take heart from it!

This is the definitive Book about Bill Gates (and the history of Windows). It covers all the management aspects of how he drove Microsoft and how the work became his life. The man doesn't do business... He LIVES it. And this book describes it in very much detail.

The details includes how Bill "turned over" IBM... Promissing them the OS/2 under the "NT Technology" flag and how he realeased Windows 95 and killed IBM forever from the Desktop business. It also shows Gates apreciation for Older woman (and many that took him to bed). As part of this "private" package, it also explains the problems that He had with Steve Ballmer. How Ballmer was showing poor management and leadership under Gates perspective and how Ballmer got over it and made his loyalty to Gates forever.

I was more interested on the part that explains how Microsoft Windows 1.0 was developed. How disastrous the first Office was compared to the competition and how they managed to "work around" and fix it, by "coping" the competition and improving it "the Microsoft way".

Buy this if you want to know how business can be done... or be "copied".

Delightful book. Its one flaw is its addictiveness, I couldn't put it down which did cost me sleep (I'm an IT professional with an entrepreneur spirit- your results may vary).

The Microsoft/Gates biography is impeccable in its wealth of interesting details and engaging story-telling.

Bill Gates is a fantastic decision maker. He would be as successful selling water or space suits, he just happened to be at the right time in the right booming industry and pushed with his business-business mentality to the limit. Right decision after right decision, the Microsoft journey is a story that any entrepreneur should nitpick and absorb as much as possible.

Of course, his terrible capitalistic drive is a perfect subject for a discussion on morals, social responsibility and related matters, but without a doubt when it comes to maximizing outcome while playing by our economic rules, Hard Drive tells a tale of epic proportions featuring a superhero / villain that rivals the best of science fiction.

This is a decent book on how Bill Gates and his business team built the Microsoft empire. The good aspects of this book include the following:

* The emphasis on how Microsoft was not built in a day but with many, many long days and lots of innovative thinking. This book illustrates how hard Gates worked.

* The portrayal of how relentlessly competitive and ambitious Gates is, be it at efficient programming, dominating the various software markets, studying higher mathematics or playing poker with his buddies.

* The specific details of the growth of Microsoft, as a company, up until the time of the book's publication.

* The implicit theme of how Gates never stops thinking.

Unfortunately, there are several aspects of this book that I disliked. These include the following:

* The writing is repetitive and often very stream-of-conscious. This book reads like a 250-300 page book diluted into a 400 page book.

* There is a lot of negative commentary about Gates' personality. First, this negative illustration seems to be done without providing the proper context. Gates is often portrayed as very immature. In this book, Gates is described as frequently issuing direct attacks on the intelligence of his employees during meetings and in private communication. He is also portrayed as immature through negligence, such as when he, presumably inadvertently, left his dirty laundry thrown about on a hotel floor for a top executive of his company to collect.

Although these incidents may be true, the authors should have emphasized that Gates is an enormously successful executive who is *only* in his twenties. While this does not excuse the described behavior, it does provide context for it. Needless to say, these immature outbursts would be appalling if they were committed by a seasoned executive in his early sixties.

More generally, this image of Gates conflicts with the image I gathered of him through other means. A friend of mine who worked at Microsoft described Gates as routinely hosting interns in his mansion for dinner, magnanimously forgiving a new employee who accidentally dented his car and graciously answering a personal e-mail concerning the artwork in his home. The Gates I have heard of through my friend, and the one who runs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, does not fit the mold of the Gates described in this book.

I am not challenging the veracity of the information contained within, I am just surmising that the negatives sound like a few bad habits that Gates may have grew out of.