Introduction to Data Communications
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8. Trade Magazines

In 1994, TCP/IP was considered dead by many Unix was considered obsolete. World Wide Web didn't exist as we know it today! Today TCP/IP is the king of network transport protocols! In a matter of months, the computing world completed reversed its direction. The only way to keep current in the computing industry is to read trade publications.

Educational institutes are not able to keep up with the pace of the computing industry. The fast track education cycle takes 6 months to a year to propose, develope and finally run a new course! In that time, there could be major changes or revisions of the product. An excellent example of change is the Linux kernel revisions over the past year.

Anything you read that is over 2 years old is pretty much obsolete! For example: anything you read about fibreoptics that is 3 months old is obsolete. To succeed you must read regularly every trade and computer magazine possible. You just have to skim the magazines and read only the articles that are of interest.

There are many free trade publications available to the computing industry if you qualify. Some examples are:

Free Publications:

Internetwork
Computing Canada
Comnputer Service News
Communication News
LAN Computing
The Computer Paper

Other publications that are worthwhile reading are:

Byte Magazine
MacWorld
PC Computing
Linux Journal
LAN magazine

Most trade magazines now offer webpage versions of their magazines on the Internet. In addition, they provide a searchable database of previous articles and programs. Access to the Internet is a necessity if you are going to succeed in the field of network computing. Examples of online resources are:

Linux Gazette
Slashdot (news for nerds)
ZDnet
Linux Documentation Project
Linux.org

Introduction to Data Communications
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