Just What the Heck am I About to Read?

This is an unfinished book, but my hope is that you'll still find something of value here. It's over 100 pages when printed, so I think it's likely that you'll find something of interest if your goal is to learn more about reliable Internet connectivity. (Although the book is unfinished, this web site should be consistent. I.e., you shouldn't find broken links and the like.)

The outline is complete and you can see it in the Table of Contents below. Much of the Preface is "real," but it also contains material intended only for editors to consider. The architecture part contains two partial chapters. They still contain some "fleshless outline," but I've tried to nearly complete the Policies for Reliability chapter.

The other parts still exist largely in outline form. The appearance of text in

program listing font

is a sign of bones in need of flesh.

I started writing this book because I noticed that I was hearing a lot of the same questions over and over again. I get a kick out of helping people use computers and networks and I thought writing a book might allow me to help more people than I could ever help one-on-one. I'd never written a book before and became aware of tools like DocBook and Xfig that would allow me to prepare the material so it could be presented as a book or website. Starting on a book seemed like a good way to organize my thoughts in a consistent way that'd be useful to others while allowing me a chance to gain familiarity with these tools.

This was a "spare time" project for me, so I knew it'd get time only as long as it was more fun than work. I worked on it fairly hard in late 1999, completing about 100 pages before Thanksgiving with a few hundred hours worked. (About 1/2 of those pages are mostly complete and about 1/2 are still in outline form.) There are also 28 figures illustrating reliability connectivity issues.

I considered entering into a contract to complete the book with a technical publisher, but rejected the idea because I thought it'd likely tip the balance more toward work than fun. My pool of spare time was empty for the first 8 months of 2000 so the project sat in mothballs. I'd occasinally give copies of the material to clients who seemed to benefit from it. Then in September, 2000, I decided to make the material available as a web site under my copyright so that it at least stood a chance of helping a wider audience. (It certainly wasn't doing anybody any good just spinning around on my hard drive getting dizzy.) If it helps you (or leads you astray), please let me know. If I have time and there seems to be interest in it, I'll continue fleshing out the parts that're fun to write or are most often requested. At worst, it can just rest here as search engine fodder for the unwitting web spider or surfer.

One final warning: most of the links below in the table of contents will lead you to pages that're nothing but outline. See the preface or the policy chapter for something closer to finished material. The index might also be a place to start if you're hunting for something in particular.