Peer-to-Peer with VB .NET 
Buy it at Amazon
Read a Sample Chapter From The Publisher
Author Matthew MacDonald
Publisher APress
Length 456 pages
vbRad Rating: 4 fingers up. (4 out of 5)
Reviewed by Robert Gelb

On the strength of Matthew MacDonald's other books (User Interfaces in VB .NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls, Beginning ASP.NET in VB .NET: From Novice to Professional, etc…), I decided to look up this one in hopes of finding help with my networking project. This author has written a ton of books, so by now, his skills at clearly presenting the information are pretty polished. Essentially, the book fulfills its promise walking the reader through the spectrum of available technologies.

The title, "P2P with VB.NET", would probably lead people to conclusion that the book discusses how to build the next Napster. Though it includes a lot of info on various models available for P2P (including those used by Napster, Gnutella and Kazaa), the book is also about remoting, clients, servers, web services, UDDI, etc…

I was mostly interested in connecting clients to the server in an IP manner, rather than doing any P2P or file sharing or what have you. I also wanted to have the server keep all connections to the clients in memory so that 2 way communication could be undertaken at any time. The chapter on connecting via raw sockets put me on the right path to the goal.

He also devotes an entire section to encrypting your data streams, digital signatures, etc… Finally, if you care, it shows you how to work with Windows Messenger, the Groove network (from the Lotus Notes guy) and the Intel Peer-to-Peer Accelerator Kit (in accelerates when you buy a faster Intel chip).

Overall, an easy to follow book with mundo examples. If you are intent on working on a P2P project, could be an invaluable resource.




Want more reviews and sample chapters? Click here.