Professor gives Cisco manual away for free
By Marguerite Reardon
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-5255083.html

Story last modified July 6, 2004, 4:00 AM PDT

        News.context

        What's new:

        Rebuffed by Cisco, instructor Matt Basham turns
        to the Internet, offering his own networking
        textbook free of charge.

        Bottom line:

        Basham's solution highlights powerful new publishing
        techniques that promise to shake up the textbook
        industry, offering cheaper alternatives to
        cash-strapped students.

More stories on this topic

Computing instructor Matt Basham's suggestions for improving Cisco
Systems' official training manuals fell on deaf ears for years. But he
appears to have the networking giant's attention now.

Basham, a professor of information technology and IT security at St.
Petersburg College in Clearwater, Fla., wrote his own 800-page Cisco
networking textbook and last week made it available for download over
the Internet free of charge.

More than 2,000 copies were downloaded around the world in the first few
days of the book's online release, according to Lulu.com, an alternative
textbook publisher that agreed to distribute it.


FULL ARTICLE : http://news.com.com/2100-1033-5255083.html