Actually, this was a while ago, but I just started using this site again recently, so I figured, what the heck, I'd post it anyway
I was a bit disappointed in the score, but I learned a tremendous amount. I gained great exposure to a variety of areas such a JMS, RMI, CORBA,
JSP tags, Message Driven Beans,
EJB in general, J2EE
Patterns, design patterns, the UML,
Struts, the PetStore distribution, Fail-over,
Java Security, MVC, the list just goes on.
I would say that the most important book to study is Mark Cade's certification guide. This is key because it gives an idea of the level of detail to present in the diagrams. It's important not to be to detailed.
Secondly, I would strongly suggest reading Applying UML and Patterns by Craig Larman. This is a very important book because it describes not only UML, but also and far more importantly, a design methodology. You will need this if you don't have experience with an OO design methodology (which I didn't). Unfortunately, I came to it a bit late, but I'm reading it now for my next certification. Anyway, it also gives a simple method for assigning responsibility to objects called the grasp pattern. And a very good basic description of the GOF Patterns.
Thirdly, I would recommend Core J2EE Patterns by Sun, although some of them are already out of date with EJB 2.0. Still, many of the patterns are still valid and should be strongly considered in the overall design.
Another very good book for learning MVC as it applies to the Web (or more accurately, Model 2) is Advanced Java Server Pages by Geary. It's a super book, very easy to follow. Strongly recomended (although I believe a later version of JSP has come out since the book was published - sigh).
For a good but confusing web site, theserverside.com is great.
For security, avoid the recommended book (I forgot the name) and find a better one, that's recommended.
Best Regards and good luck!
Sam
SCEA SCJD (1.1)
SCJP (1.1)
BrainBench EJB (Master's level)
BrainBench Java 1.1 (Master's level)
MCP VB 4.0
