| Interviewer:
|
Please take a minute to
provide our readers with a brief introduction/background. |
|
| Author: |
Since 1992, I’ve
been a product manager for Fluke’s LANMeter, a handheld network
analysis tool. My responsibilities include conducting market
research, writing manuals and literature, specifying and beta
testing new products, delivering papers at tradeshows and providing
worldwide training and sales support. For over 10 years I’ve been
involved in the design, installation and troubleshooting of
networks. Although my focus has been primarily on OSI Layer 3 and
below, I’ve taught networking seminars and networking courses at
local community colleges. Since 1993, I have been a member of the
NetWorld+Interop tradeshow Network Operations Center (NOC) team. As
a NOC member, I work with other corporate volunteers to ensure the
world’s most complex networks at the Las Vegas and Atlanta
tradeshows are up and running. Additionally, I was chosen to help
support and troubleshoot the network for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic
Games. He participates in the local community college system as a
member of program advisory boards in electronics, computer service
and networking technologies. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
Where are you from?
How--if at all--has your sense of place colored your writing? |
|
| Author: |
I am a Seattle native,
though I have traveled much of the world. Living in other countries
and general exposure to many different cultures and societies has
sharpened my disgust at many Americans who complain about their lack
of liberties and opportunities. (Yes, things could always be better,
but I choose to focus on real issues and don’t complain!) All
said, location has not affected my technical writing. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
When and why did you begin
writing? When did you first consider yourself a writer? |
|
| Author: |
My job requires a lot
of writing. Until this volume was published, I didn’t consider
myself a “writer,” though some of the projects I have worked on
in the past have higher page count. I am still not entirely
comfortable with being introduced as an author. When asked to sign
the book, I always have the urge to look over my shoulder to see if
the request is being directed to someone standing behind me. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
Who or what has influenced
your writing, and in what way? What books have most influenced your
personal and professional life? |
|
| Author: |
While teaching
networking classes at the community college level, I was unable to
locate a textbook suitable for anything other than NOS-specific
training. Sure. You can learn to create users for almost any
operating system, but how do you fix the network? The books
available helped you reach the determination that there was a
network problem, then told you to go troubleshoot it. “Great,”
you think. “I already knew I had a problem, that’s why I bought
this *&#@ book. What do I do now?” |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
What is the most romantic
book you've ever read? The scariest? The funniest? |
|
| Author: |
I don’t have a great
deal of, ahh…“spare” time. Although, I spend a lot of time
trying to stay awake while reading standards documents. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
Who is the target audience
for your book? What should their level of technical knowledge be? |
|
| Author: |
It’s written as a
reference for networking professionals as well as an educational
text for novices interested in learning more about network
operation. It was pretty hard to satisfy both audiences at once
since they are almost polar opposites. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
How is the book organized? |
|
| Author: |
The text is organized
into three basic chapters: how to avoid problems (Chapter 1), how to
solve problems (Chapter 2), and how to form a network maintenance
strategy (Chapter 3). The appendices that follow Chapter 3 are
intended as references, despite the fact that most of the book
consists of appendices. Thus, the suggested order for reading this
text depends on your knowledge and skill level. If you are in panic
mode, go directly to Chapter 2. If you are designing a new network,
start with Chapter 1 and the appropriate appendix. If you are new to
networking, start with Appendix B and A in order to understand the
terminology and concepts referenced elsewhere in the book. If you
need to form a network maintenance strategy, go to Chapter 3. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
Tell us how your
background and experience enabled you to write about this topic? |
|
| Author: |
I spent several years
performing bench and field repair of PC computers and peripherals.
When the company I was working for faced a possible network problem,
I always volunteered to go. The key to surviving such a service call
was being able to distinguish between a user problem, a hardware
problem, a software problem and a network problem. After that
distinction was made, the repair was usually pretty easy. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
What made you decide to
write this extensively on this topic? |
|
| Author: |
Aside from not being
able to find a suitable textbook for my community college courses,
the Fluke telephone support line was experiencing a particular
problem with close to 95 percent of all networking product support
calls. Only 5 percent of the calls were product support calls. The
rest fell into the category of pro-bono network troubleshooting.
When this book started shipping with our tools, the call volume
dropped by a third almost overnight. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
Can your book be helpful
in preparing for Cisco certification? If so, for which
certifications or exams? |
|
| Author: |
I am helping to
develop the curriculum for the CCNA® and CCNP® programs. Changes in
these programs will probably include Fluke tools as training aids.
Cisco is very strong in OSI Layers 3 and 4 because of the Cisco OS.
Fluke is very strong in troubleshooting OSI Layers 1 to 3 because of
our troubleshooting tools. At this time the impact of the training
is still to be determined. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
What other projects are
you planning? Will we see another book from you? If so when? |
|
| Author: |
Right now I am in
negotiations with two publishing houses. I expect to participate in
producing a series of books under the “Fluke Press” heading
sometime soon. These books will be about technologies that Fluke
troubleshooting tools address and will also assume that you already
know you have a network problem. The next book will probably be
about network cabling (copper and fiber), though I am presently
adding Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet sections to the existing
book. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
What did you think of the
writing process? How long did it take you to write your book? |
|
| Author: |
The writing process is
challenging. This type of book is not generally available simply
because it is hard to learn the tricks. Anyone that has gone to the
trouble of learning this level of networking is making big bucks as
a consultant, and does not have the time to write about it. They
also don’t have the incentive to write because it might mean their
clients could do it themselves. It took about two years to write
this book, though it was a back-burner project. Also, serving as an
outline for the book was a 48-page Token Ring booklet that took
about six months to write. The need to research every single fact
back to the Standards is a time-consuming process. What amazes me is
that the current printing is not known to have any errors. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
Did you learn anything
from this project? If so what? |
|
| Author: |
When they ask for
volunteers to write this book, it wasn’t enough to keep my hand
down and stand fast. I neglected to step back with the others.
Seriously though, almost everything I tried to use as reference
material was fraught with errors. I learned you can’t trust
anything unless it’s a standards document. The standards may not
be entirely technically sound, but they have the distinct advantage
of being correct by definition. Descriptions found in the popular
press are often over-simplified, or the authors references were
wrong from the start and are thus propagated wrong. I found
instances where I could trace errors back through several authors by
checking publication dates. The original description was usually
slightly over-simplified, and subsequent authors misinterpreted it
and validated their own errors by double-checking their
understanding against other authors errors. I have even seen
flagrant technical errors in some of the industry certification
programs, where basic Ethernet errors are promoted and included
(incorrectly) in the certification testing. |
|
|
| Interviewer:
|
If you were asked about
what is the best way to succeed in the field of networking what
would you say? |
|
| Author: |
To succeed in the
field of networking you should assume the attitude of an “eternal
student” because you will need to be one. The reward is your
career will never be boring. |
