reviewed by: Peter deHaan

Publisher: No Starch Press

243 pages

This is the second book on Wi-Fi I have read, the first one being "The Wireless Networking Starter Kit by Adam Engst and Glenn Fleishman". Both books are somewhat different, and yet both are outstanding at what they do. I found "The Book of Wi-Fi" to be a more technical approach to setting up and configuring Wi-Fi in both a small home scenario as well as in a larger multi-building setting. I found that this book had VERY comprehensive sections on setting up wireless connections for all the major operating systems, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Unix, as well as setting up Wi-Fi for your PDA and other handheld devices. This is one place where I can compare this book to "The Wireless Networking Starter Kit" I mentioned earlier. The Wireless Networking Starter Kit only covered installing a Wi-Fi connection in a Windows and Mac (8.6 or 9.x as well as OS X) environment, whereas The Book of Wi-Fi covers Linux, Unix, and handheld devices as well.

Around the house we only have a single Wi-Fi router (DLink DI-614+) and a PDA (iPAQ 3650 - with a Linksys CompactFlash Wi-Fi adapter) so I wasn't able to practice most of the chapters, but after just reading this book I felt that I had a much better understanding of how Wi-Fi works, how to secure a Wi-Fi network, setting up a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and using WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption. One more area where this book really stood out was the troubleshooting chapter which addresses many of the most common problems that you would encouter and gives you tips on correcting the problems. Although the troubleshooting section isn't very long (10 pages -- opposed to the 22 page chapter in the Wireless Networking Starter Kit book), it is still very helpful when you encounter problems setting up your wireless connection.

In my personal experience, it was dead simple to get my wireless router up and running in about 10 minutes (with Windows XP), even without the aid of a book, but what these books do is teach you how to properly configure the network connection and secure it so other people don't use your internet connection or connect to your network. They also teach you how to extend your network's range with the aid of improved antennas and other tools.

Overall this is an outstanding book which gives you a good working knowledge of every aspect of wireless networking and how to set up a small home network or a larger corporate Wi-Fi network with a firewall and VPN.

Rating: (4.5/5).