Cisco Networking Essentials 1st Edition

Very good book taking you in a very good flow by explaining the OSI and TCP/IP model in a very practical/real life way rather than being theory driven. Nice pictures. Highly recommend. I also bought Trainsignal course before reading this and I think the mixture of both is probably the best thing for good foundation in networking.I plan to give network+exam some time soon and will then update comment on how i did in the test but for now the plan is to get concepts right.

It's a good book. I kept trying to learn the CCNA1 book, and getting hung up and stuck. This book seems to cram too much in with just a brief overview so that you're sometimes left still wondering what the heck is going on.Overall, it's a good essentials overview book, though. A bit better for dummies like me.

This book does a decent job of introducing the reader to networking. Mr. McMillan lays out the material in a very clear and concise manner. The problem is that this book is literally riddled with all sorts of typos and errors. What's worse, these errors seem to be concentrated in areas where accuracy is crucial to the understanding of the material. If you have some background in networking, you may be able to navigate your way through them and distinguish between what's correct and what's not correct. However, for those of you who are learning the subject matter for the first time, you won't know if you're coming or going; it will totally screw up your head. In my opinion, the editorial staff that Mr. McMillan so eloquently thanked in the acknowledgements section of his book should, instead, have been rebuked for doing such a horrific job of editing; they must have edited the book blindfolded. At one point, the author deliberately instructs the reader to study a specific diagram of a network and make sure that he/she can relate the diagram to the text. The diagram is so disjointed from the text that it wouldn't have made a difference if the author substituted a diagram of the female anatomy of a frog. And, the editorial staff probably wouldn't have picked that up either. For the sheer multitude of errors and the confusion they caused, I should have given this book a 1-star rating. At the same time, had this book been edited by people who cared, Mr. McMillan's excellent presentation of the material would have earned it a 4-star or even possibly a 5-star rating.

This book is awesome anyone interrested in networking should definately read this book. I ordered 1 for myself and 2 more for friends.

Been my favorite tech book so far . Order a lot of Cisco books on amazon and this is the best so far. Thank you.Keep up the great work Troy McMillian.

You will find everything needed to understand a network: IP addresses, protocols, hardware, ... What they are, how they work and how you can manage them. I learned about networking few years ago, and I wished to have such a book at that time.All the theory about networking is well explained, and is useful even if you don't use Cisco devices. Color schema are helpful and configuration examples also.If you plan to learn IP networking, this is the book you need.

Purchased for my son. Very pleased!

Disclaimer: I read Cisco Networking Essentials approximately 2 years ago. This review was written shortly after and reflects my immediate thoughts on the book.I'm a big advocate of the essentials series that Sybex has begun publishing. They are full-color, high quality books, and are written with the absolute beginner in mind. However, despite my previous positive experiences with the series, I cannot recommend this latest book.Cisco Networking Essentials suffers from trying to incorporate too many subjects into too few pages. As such, the author only provides brief summaries of any technologies discussed and goes into very little depth.Imagine you are completely new to computing. You take a class at your local college and on the first day the instructor explains that a computer's CPU is what allows it to "think". Immediately your mind starts racing: "Think how? What is it thinking? What's actually happening on the electrical level? Do different CPUs think differently?" These are all great questions and a competent instructor will address them as the class progresses. But, what if instead, the instructor just stops there. No further explanation is given, no depth of material is discussed, and your entire discussion ends at "Computers use CPUs to think." This is what it feels like to read this book. The brevity with which topics are covered causes confusion and does little to help the reader in actually learning the topics presented.In addition to the above, the book is riddled with errors! They're usually small, but wrong is wrong and if you're just learning the subject for the first time, this can become extremely disorienting and frustrating.If you are serious about learning the "essentials", I would recommend diving head first into a CCENT or CCNA prep book. It's not for the faint of heart and it will be difficult at first, but as they say “from struggle comes success.”