Network+ Guide to Networks, Tamara Dean (Author), ISBN: 1133608191
I remembered finding a lot of serious errors in this book, so I checked to see if that was still true.
Here is what I found. On page 50, this book explains layer 3 of the TCP/IP model:
As you can see, the explanation says that layer 3 converts IP addresses into MAC addresses, and then gives a detailed example of converting the IP address 10.34.99.12 to the MAC address 0060973E97F3. This is completely incorrect. Layer 3 does not use MAC addresses at all. I contacted the publisher in 2009 to complain about this page, in the previous edition of the textbook. The author gave this response:
I was horrified at the response, which completely denies the error, even asserting that she never meant it to apply to MAC addresses when the example is using an obvious MAC address.
Her proposed correction would have made it better, but she didn't even do that.
I had a list of many other errors in this book, but seeing that it was worthless to tell the author, I didn't report them to her. I did, however, make a mental note never to use that book. I see that the same error remains, on the exact same page, in the current edition of the book.
I can't ask students to pay $65 - $95 for this book. I am planning to use this one instead:
That book is much cheaper ($33 - $38) and has better reviews on Amazon. It's not perfect--I found a few mistakes in the IPv6 chapter, but I'll tell the author and maybe he'll fix it instead of ignoring me. Anyway, it's certainly as good, and 1/2 to 1/3 the price.