I dedicated this Guide to my wife and children to reflect the important role they have played in life in general terms, and in accomplishing this Guide in particular. However, there are many others who also contributed to the completion of this document, and I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge them.

I want to thank my “original” family, my father Leon, and sisters Cari and Cindy, for being supportive and lending a helpful ear about various issues during the time that I’ve engaged in this project. Thanks also to my “adoptive” family, Eli, Marge, Larry and Steven. And I definitely want to thank the small group of close friends who have helped with ideas, advice and much needed laughs, especially Morley, Jeff, James and Jon, all of whom had to listen to far more of my blathering about this project over the last few years than any human being should have to tolerate. J

I would also like to specifically acknowledge the following individuals and organizations for their assistance:

• Adobe Systems Incorporated, for providing this relatively unknown author with two important pieces of software that I used in creating this Guide. First, Adobe Framemaker, one of the best desktop publishing programs around, which was used to format and publish this document. Second, Adobe Photoshop, the industry standard program for photo and graphics editing, which was used for some of the graphics in this Guide, and will play a more central role in subsequent Guides containing more photographs.
  
  
• SmartDraw.com, for the excellent SmartDraw diagramming software that was used to create most of the over 300 illustrations that appear in this Guide.
  
  
• Harald Heim of The Plugin Site, for graciously providing me with two excellent Photoshop plugins that any serious photographer should consider: the FocalBlade sharpening tool and ColorWasher color-correction plugin.
  
  
• Omni Systems, for their superb MIf2Go FrameMaker/HTML export filter, without which the production of the TCP/IP Guide online HTML version would have been much more difficult.
  
  
• Fernando Gont and Barry Margolin, for their excellent technical review of The TCP/IP Guide, and their corrections and suggestions for improvement to the document.
  
  
• Bill Pollock, president and publisher of No Starch Press, for constantly expressing his faith in my abilities as an author, for answering questions about the business, for being a sounding board, and for agreeing to publish The TCP/IP Guide in book form.
  
  
• Tcat Houser, author and instructor, whose generosity, positive attitude and enthusiasm for my writing helped boost my confidence as I worked to complete this project.
  
  
• All the regulars at The PC Guide Discussion Forums, for creating a fun community, helping keep the site active, and agreeing to review and provide opinions on my writing. Thanks especially to Paleo Pete and mjc for doing such a great job of moderating the forums.
  
  
• Christine Hylands of Junefire DTP, for assistance with creating certain graphics in this Guide, as well as designing its Web site (on short notice).
  
  
• Everyone who has supported The PC Guide, financially and otherwise, which made it possible for me to spend time on this project.

I’ve probably missed a few people who should be on this list; I hope all who are deserving of my appreciation will forgive their omission and accept my thanks.