The other day my sister rang up to ask if my son and I would put together a computer for her son's birthday. The spec included networking it to the machine that the family already own. A client of mine runs a three- machine peer-to-peer network that is used by two of his children to surf the WWW. These are just two examples of privately owned networks. The important issue is that each uses a dial-up connection to access the WWW. That means that it is useful for them to use programs such as SyGate Manager to allow multiple machines to access the Internet over a small LAN. When people have faster access through cable modems etc. this will be even more attractive.

The reason why this has any significance is that you need to know something about TCP/IP if you are to manage such a private LAN. In other words what used to be the domain of a highly trained expert is becoming a required skill for the family or small business expert. Just as the various TY xxx Programming in 21 days are inappropriate to the would-be professional software developer, this bookis not what the corporate network expert needs. (Though my experience suggests that many of them would be the better for reading it) but it is a good place for SOHO LAN manager to learn enough to cope.