Thx very much....
just took several days of rest...
Well , about the exam, EJB plays the majority on numbers of the questions.
For EJB and EJB Container Model, I study the books of Mastering EJB2 by Ed. Roman and Enterprise JavaBean by publisher O'reilly. The first book is easy to read and it covers EJB2, while the second one is comprehensive and concise. Knowing which kind of beans among all kinds of beans is just the basic. It is important to know the applicability of different types of beans in different scenario.
For Design Patterns, I just read the GOF books. However, that book is quite 'tough' as it use C++ as its primary programming langauge and design for elaboration. Although I know programming in C++, mapping between
Java and C++ is still needed. Yet, it is a good book.
You should remember the use of each pattern, the different between each of them e.g. Adapter pattern Vs Bridge pattern. Besides, you might find another design pattern book useful named 'Applied Java Pattern' which is newly published by Prentise Hall (not sure). It use Java for program implementation and UML for design diagrams notation. I have got a read from that, it based on patterns mentioned in GOF book, but it is quite thick, not 'mobile'
For messaging and Internationalization, I just study the online tutorial in J2EE tutorial provided by Sun (you might find it in
http://java.sun.com/j2ee). The online tutorial was very helpful, you can follow the sample programs and make your own for
testing.
About the Common Architecture, Legacy Connectivity and Protocol, I don't have any reference books, just read the notes from John and make some search on the internet
For security, I read two books, Java Security published by O'reilly and Java 2 Network Security from IBM. The former is good for studying the Security Sandbox and different implementation of security in Java, whereas the latter one mentions the Security issue in a comparatively broad view, such as firewall and SSL. Besides, I study knowledge of SSL from Netscape.
You might also found useful information in the scealink in this site.
It is my happiness to share with all of you.
Thanks & Cheers/Franky