Should probably give credit also the following freely available sources which were hugely helpful:
Moelholm.com
LeoCrawford.com (very good source for those old chestnuts: Messaging and Legacy Connectivity)
also
Ravi's notes
Whizlabs notes (not free, but bundled with their mock
test app)
....and numerous friendly Javaranchers posts
One of the biggest challenges when finding resources for this exam is that there is no single source/book/site that is:
1) Up to date (ie covers all current exam objectives)
2) On topic
Cade (which is a great book, and well worth the read anyway) totally bucks the trend in computer books these days in that it is short, sharp, and gets right to the point. ie, Just the facts Maam. Sadly it is out of date, not covering some of the current objectives.
In stark contrast to this was the Paul Allen book. Its completely overblown, and loaded with irrelevent stuff. eg, the Legacy Connectivity chapter goes into great detail about JCA, but Im pretty sure this is not in scope. Also, many of the questions at the end of the chapters were really poor quality, often having little to do with the stated exam objectives.
Its pretty incredible to see otherwise clever people, when writing a book or resource, so easily go off topic for a test with very clearly stated objectives.
Heres a question to the Ranch Hands.....
Has anyone ever suggested a set of Wiki style pages attached to javaranch that covers the objectives for this test all in one place? Something as simple as what
Leo Crawfordhas, just opened up to the community and freshened up a bit would probably do the trick.