Synopsis
The i-Net+ certification measures an IT professional's Internet knowledge. This study guide covers all the candidate needs to know to take and pass the exam. The text is organised by exam topic, exam watch elements, quick drill and chapter summary.
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Review
Extremely thorough for an exam which is intended to be an overview, Syngress's I-Net+ Certification Study Guide will give you an in-depth look at the topics you'll need to pass. It'll be best if you have some basic experience in surfing and posting on discussion boards, however, since some minor misconceptions presented as straight fact in the book may lead you astray in the real world.
The book itself goes into a wonderful excess of detail--if you're the sort of person who likes knowing the underpinnings to every concept you need to study for, this is the book for you. The sections on routing basics not only explain what routing is, but dip into arcane topics like Border Gateway Protocols and Network Access Points. The chapter on security not only describes basic concepts such as logging, but goes into detail on the weaknesses of Intrusion Detection Utilities and discusses the candidate technologies currently in contention for the as-yet-undecided Advanced Encryption Standard.
The writing style is clean and precise, treading that fine line between "too technical" and the "Dummies" writing. It could have used a few more illustrations to flesh out some of the finer points, though, and the content organisation is sometimes erratic--the OSI chapter comes after the chapter on routing (and believe me, you want OSI, a networking basic, before you start getting into routing).
However, there are some notable (and curious) facts that are left out. There is no discussion on TCP/IP subnetting to be found anywhere in the book, and DMZ zones are almost skipped over as a topic. Practically nothing is to be found on server bandwidth as a site consideration. And the chapter on HTML is a fine introduction to the topic, with clear writings and solid examples, but when you get to the section on scripting languages JavaScript is barely mentioned and not mentioned at all under the "When To Use Which Language" section. As one of the most popular Web technologies, it seems a disservice to mention it in passing.
But real-world concepts are often presented wrongly and with great authority here. The Study Guide blithely makes statements such as, "...mailing lists are the source of SPAM, which is unsolicited e-mail" without making any reference to, say, discussion lists or subscription e-mail newsletters. It also states that the slow-loading and long-suffering Shockwave is the improvement to the up-and-coming Flash multimedia technology, and doesn't make it clear that the only real difference between .com and .net is that .net is generally what you take when someone else bought the .com address.
The chapter on business issues, a frequently-overlooked I-Net+ topic, is fairly thorough and should be enough to squeak you through that section if studied thoroughly--unfortunately, the writing switches into severe business-speak jargon during these parts. Watching the writers throw around hackneyed terms such as "opportunities", "challenges" and "implementation" at every, opportunity, gets a bit dull.
The 20-question quizzes at the end of every chapter are very meticulous and tough, which helps the book considerably. You'll need to re-read each chapter more than once to pass the chapter-end tests. Self-testing software also provides value, but be warned that you'll have to use Internet Explorer to use the exams. A large glossary explaining terms helps build your comprehension.
In short, this is a good book that makes some strange choices. Thorough study will get you past the exam, as the admirably painstaking nature of the good chapters will balance out the chapters that gloss over (or misrepresent) other vital topics. However, just be warned that in many ways this is a "test-only" book, and keep an open mind if someone tells you that these concepts work a bit differently in the real world. --William Steinmetz
Synopsis
The i-Net+ certification measures an IT professional's Internet knowledge. This study guide covers all the candidate needs to know to take and pass the exam. The text is organised by exam topic, exam watch elements, quick drill and chapter summary.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.