SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5 Study Guide is the book I am working with. I went through it once, made some annotations and did the tests at the end of each chapter.

 Here are the tests results:

chap I :        6 /  9            67 %    Declarations and access control

chap II :       6 / 14            43 %    Object Orientation

chap III :      7 / 14            50 %    Assignments

chap IV :     7 / 10            70 %    Operators

chap V :      5 / 16            31 %    Flow control, Exceptions & Assertions

chap VI :     3 / 15            20 %    Strings, I/O, Formatting & Parsing

chap VII :    3 / 16            18 %    Generics & Collections

chap VIII :   9 / 12            75 %     Inner Classes

chap IX :     8 / 17            47 %     Threads

Looks like I have to put serious work, the pass score for this exam is 65 % !

SCJP or Sun Certified Java Programmer is an exam which certifies that the one holding it has a good understanding of the Java programming language. It is focused on the standard edition of Java and Sun’s specifications.

It is not an easy exam but by no means the one holding that certification can be considered a Java expert.

For me, acquiring this certification is a personal goal, something I’ve been puting aside for far too long.

Quick review of where I come from: I have always been involved with computers, programming mostly. Basic, QBasic, Pascal, C, Java, these were the main programming languages I’ve been working with over the years.

The first time I wanted to pass the SCJP I was student in my 4th year in the Computer Science Faculty. It was named SCJP 1.4 back then. Then I got employed, working in Java as a newbie. I convinced people at my company to order Kathy Sierra’s and Bert Bate’s book , for SCJP 1.5. ( version 5 had come out by then).

I went through that book and at after I read it all once I stopped, with some changes coming in my life.

Another two years passed and I decided it’s time.

About two months ago I started preparing for SCJP 1.6. I still have the 1.5 book SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5 Study Guide (Exam 310-055) (Certification Press Study Guides), but I think I’ll manage only with this one.

My goal is that somewhere around the middle of May I want to be SCJP 1.6 . Currently I’m working on it.

Much has been said about the benefits of traveling.

I often see tourists who preffer spending all their time taking pictures of some stones or whatever buildings and not at all getting to know the local culture.

I think it’s very important to dive in the culture of the country where you travel. That is where the real mind expanding experiences come from. When you get to see how other people think and act, that will be of more gain than any fancy cruise on a 5 star ship where you only get to take pictures.

Speakers and other electronic devices are not usually built with dual voltage.
If you buy speakers in Australia let’s say and you take them with you when you move to US you will fry them, unless.

Unless you buy a voltage converter. These have a price that vary from 15$ to 100+$, depending on the power that they have to output to the device. There are different dyes of voltage converters, step up, step down converters.

Make sure you buy the right ones. Check amazon, altough you can find specialized shops as well.

I needed a voltage converter to ensure that I will be able to listen to my Klispch Promedia 2.1 when going back to Europe.

After checking the internet I found dvdoverseas.com and even managed to buy directly from their deposit in Illinois as I was near them. Great stuff and very attractive prices ! I bought 4 ( four) voltage converters - one massive 500W and 3 small 50W for house appliances, about 8 plug adapters grounded and not grounded , paying for all these less than 70$, taxes included !

One thing that is useful to know and I didn’t see it mentioned in other places - the electricity frequence does not matter for electronic devices. For example, in Europe the electricity usually comes at 220V / 50 Hz . In the US is usually 110 V / 60 Hz.
The voltage converters only convert voltage. But you don’t need a frequency converter, unless you have something like an industrial engine or some other this kind of equipment. For electronic devices - electricity frequence does not matter.

It’s simple. Use a VPN service.

For those who don’t know, many countries block or restrict internet access to specific websites. Amongst them, yes the US&A where you cannot access gambling websites. But most famous for restrictions are Dubai- the Etisalat provider, Qatar and UAE in the Middle East and China, India in Asia.

Examples of websites being restricted? Skype, MSN, Youtube, Blogger, BBC.

Now, using a VPN service all your Internet traffic is tunneled through the provider’s private network. So you only access their server and they serve you with any webpage you want or any other type of traffic - like access to peer2peer networks.

Other benefits of using a VPN service:

• When you are traveling to countries where certain websites are restricted, you can easily access them using our VPN service.
• Malicious users have no way of getting to your machine, as your real IP address is protected by the VPN encryption.
• You can bypass proxy servers, filters set by your network administrator or Internet Service Provider.
• When you are accessing the Internet from a wireless hotspot, you are protected from threats, using the security layer and encryption in the VPN.
• You can have all the benefits of the IP in the country where the VPN originates. Most will provide United States IP, so you will be able to watch their tv shows online, which filter the IP.

There are many VPN providers out there. I personally had a very good experience with the Happy VPN service. You can find them at www.happyvpn.com . These guys do their job pretty good, the service is up all the time and the customer service has been really helpful. And, important point, they have good prices also

Apart from VPN services you can try some proxies. These can be used to view blocked websites. (They are good only for webpage traffic, port 80). The problem with these proxies is that being free they are often set up by malicious users who steal and spy on your traffic. I wouldn’t personally recommend them.

These being said, the best way to access a blocked website is to get a VPN account. It will give you relief while being online on the cost of a reasonable monthly fee.

Pink Floyd.

Many times people have asked me : “Hey, what computer should I buy?” or “Can you make a website” or “Can you build a computer?”. They knew I graduated a Computers college. I explain them that we specialize in a tiny area of computer science and only that can be more vast than other disciplines, not related to computers. I tell them that I can write software programs but I don’t have the knowledge to write a computer game or a website with animation. And that I am not a god with Excel.

Probably a brain surgeon feels the same when asked to tell his cousin what to do about that itchy pain in the leg.

Cellphone, PDA, laptop, desktop computer from home, desktop computer from work. Personal email, work email, paper notes.

Favorites from internet explorer, favorites from mozilla, links sent by friends on email.

Movies, music, documents, pictures, programs.

Power outage, hard disk failure, email size limit, mobility, accesibility.

Today there is an abundance of electronic devices to take notes on, to store data on. We reveive tones of information on email - personal and from work, there are so many interesting articles, songs, pictures that we want to keep track easily, to access them easily and to store them safely. Losing all our pictures from the last 5 years would be a catastrophic event. Probably soon insurance policies will even be invented for such events.

When you go visit your aunt from Kingdom Far Away, you feel the need of showing her pictures from the trip you did last year.

When you want to remember something, you take a note on your calendar and a email will popup as a reminder. Some email companies provide the possibility of notifications directly on your mobile.

When you drive your car and you have a brilliant idea, you quickly record an audio note on your mobile. Then at work when another idea comes that you want to remember, you will probably send an email to your personal adress.

When you go for a 3 weeks business trip on another state, you will feel the need of accessing the 300 GB collection of data you have on your desktop computer from home.

I found myself in most of this situations. Another challenge that I always face is to have at little redundancy as possible with the most degree of safety in case of disasters like hard drive failure.

I take tones of notes all the time.  I have ten thousand of emails that I want to keep, on my personal email. I have thousands of useful information on my work email, which is not work related. I have .txt notes on all my computers, I have hundreds of favorites. Etc, etc.

Introducing, 21 century. Internet is virtually available everywhere. The following are the solutions I found for the aforementioned issues :

1. Favorite websites : Google Bookmars

2. Text notes : Google Notebook

3. All types of notes - the most powerful software I saw of this type: Evernote. I would really suggest giving this software a try. It will blow your mind.

4. Email: gmail with smtp and pop access.

5. Large data storage: external hard drive. I have a slim yet powerful Western Digital Passport, very easy to carry everywhere I go on trips. You may buy also a 1 TB or bigger external hard drive to keep in your house, for storage of important files as photos. On most of these devices you can store data on RAID, meaning that you can take more precaution measures.

6. Remote computer access : Windows Remote Desktop connection and virtual private netowork. A very easy to set and use vpn software is Hamachi . This way you can access any of your computers from everywhere, as long as you can also control your firewall( it may be possible that you will not be able to create a vpn with your work computer, for obvious reasons).

The beauty with Google is that you use your google id for all their products. And they have so many quality products, it never ceases to amaze me.

No more annoying alarm bell ! That puts you in a bad mood from the start of day. It’s time to have a nice song for waking up!
Here’s how.

2008 UPDATE: I just realize that today you can simply copy your favorite song to your mobile phone and assign it to the alarm. But, let’s say that you don’t like the sound quality from your mobile phone and preffer to wake up with sound from your sound system. That way, the below is still valid

We assume that you have:
1. a desktop computer - or
2. a laptop - or
3. wireless speakers
in your room.

STEP 1. Go to Start -> Control Panel.

STEP 2.

If on your computer this does not appear, than most probably this is the way the control panel appears:

Choose “Performance and Maintenance”. 

 STEP 3. Click “Add Scheduled Task”

STEP 4.

STEP 5. Select “Winamp” from the list of installed programs

STEP 6. Choose a name for the task

STEP 7. 

STEP 8. Enter user name & password you use when logging into Windows

STEP 9.

STEP 10.

STEP 11. I recommend using this configuration:

STEP 12. Install the winamp startup plugin from here .

You are now finished. Make sure that the song that you desire to wake up is the first in the most recently used winamp playlist.

If you experience any problems, just leave a comment on this page and you’ll get a solution.

Enjoy.

… has helped me. To me, an ice cream or a juicy pork steak are just not interesting. Or a cigarette( is that food?).

This is a habit I developed and cultivated in time. Reading information from various places and trying it. And sticking to it, no matter the temptations or other’s opinions.

Many years ago I was paying several visits a year to different cardiologists. I was suspect of a heart disease and doctors were contradicting each other. In the last five years all doctors said the same thing: “You are perfectly healthy“. The last doctor I saw, for a routine check, told me “I don’t know what you’re doing, but it must be really good. You have the heart beat of a professional athlete“. His words were the perfect result of all my efforts.

I am not going to say what food to eat. I encourage you to search for yourself what suits you best. Stay away from instant gratification advertisement. You are not going to get healthy or slim in a week. Not even a month. It’s not going to happen. You will experience frustration when all the others are “enojoying their life” and eating whatever comes their way. Stick to it. Five years from now you will have a slick smile on your healthy face, while they will have a big belly and a fat ass.

Eating healthy food is one of the keys of living long and happy. There are others - like exercising regularly. Another crucial one is having a healthy social life.

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