 straight lines are slightly off the hori- zontal or vertical, the drawing will look like the etchings of a serial killer. When you take the time to orient all the lines, the difference is dramatic. Similarly, lines drawn at an angle should all be at the same angle where possible. Delineate when you can If there are two locations in your drawing, separate them somehow. Put each one in a rectangle (rounded rectangles are preferred by many people). Using colors, or even shades of gray can help as well. Line up your icons If you have a row of icons in your drawing, take the time to line them all up along a single axis. Documentation Naming Conventions for Devices Hostnames should be constructed SO that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the network can determine the devices' functions. However, there seems to be a tendency among IT people to give their devices the most incomprehensible names possible. For example, here's a real hostname from my time in the field (I've changed the company name and details to protect the guilty): gadnslax1mai750901. What the heck does that mean? Is it relevant? Can I tell what the system is from the hostname? More importantly, can you? In a training session for the network containing these wacky hostnames, one of the students asked what the hostnames meant. No one could answer without looking up the document describing the hostname layout. Hostnames should not require research! Here's the breakdown of the offending name: gadnslax1mai750901 gad - The name of the company (GAD Technology) ns - Network services lax - Los Angeles 1 - It's the first, um, thing in Los Angeles mai - Main Street 7509 - The device is a Cisco 7509 01 - It's the first 7509 in this location The purpose of a hostname is to identify a device. Hostnames should be easy to remember. When a hostname is harder to remember than an IP address, using a hostname is counterproductive. When a hostname is coupled with a domain name to make a fully qualified domain name (FQDN), the resulting string should be obvious and simp