Hi Dude,
I would recommend you to take a look at
Sun's Java BluePrint web site.
There, you can find useful web sample applications, free pdf books and a lot of stuff related to web applications developed with both
J2EE 1.4 and J2EE 5.
A very helpful starting point would be the
Java Pet Store Demo which is part of
Java BluePrints and contains a real web application started from zero showing all the most likely concepts you would find in the real world.
I also would recommend you to download the
J2EE 1.4 Samples which contains a lot of code and real world examples.
Finally, if you are using
Tomcat, I also would recommend you to take a look at
http://localhost:8080/servlets-examples. There you can find a lot of stuff for fun.
If you are looking for some swing sample applications, I would recommend you to take a look at :
Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing: Table of Contents Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing SwingWiki: Java Swing Developer Wiki Oh ! One of the most pratical certifications Sun offers is the
SCJD - Sun Certified Java Developer.
I also think such certification would be very useful if you are looking for some experience in Swing field.
Hope that helps.