Random Thoughts

The Hindu Business Line has reviewed our “SCMAD Exam Guide” and gives a thumbs-up for the book.

Mobile developer stuff by D. Murali

Where does the true developer stuff start for an engineer aspiring to be a Sun Certified Mobile Application Developer? In ‘The MIDlet,’ say Ko Ko Naing, Sathya Srinivasan, Chad Davis, and Sivasundaram Umapathy in SCMAD Exam Guide: Exam CX-310-110 ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com).

“If a configuration is like the skeleton of the human body, the profile forms the rest of the body — the skin, muscles and so on. Following this analogy, sunglasses, tattoos and jewellery would translate to Bluetooth support, video capture and other technological bling — the optional packages,” the authors begin, in a chapter that shows ‘how to actually write applications for mobile phones.’

They define MIDlets as high-level conceptual applications much parallel to Java servlets and applets.

“These applications do not contain main method entry points like the lower level applications. These higher level applications are executed by being deployed in some other lower level application, such as a servlet container or a JRE plug-in.”

Right pick for the avid techie.

Source: as appeared in “Books 2 Byte” column on 2nd February 2009, The Hindu Business Line – The Hindu Business Line Review

The companion website for “SCMAD Exam Guide” is now open at http://www.scmadbook.com. You can find the Table of contents, Exam Information, Downloadable exam notes(“Sathya’s notes”), Sample Chapter(to be updated), Errata here. Good luck with your preparation.

My long pending book “SCMAD Exam Guide” which I co-authored with Sathya Srinivasan, Ko Ko Naing, Chad Davis is now out. This book helps you to ace the Sun Certified Mobile Application Developer (Exam CX-310-110) certification. You can also use it as a general reference to understand the JavaME landscape. If you are in India, you can buy your copy from any local bookstore. If you are outside India, you can get your copy through Amazon but you have to wait for atleast two weeks as the book is still not available there. Please watch out this space as I would be updating it with more information in the coming weeks.

ISBN-13: 978-0-07-007788-1

ISBN-10: 0-07-007788-6

Publisher: Tata McGraw-Hill

Richard Monson-Haefel has recently blogged about his new role in the Java industry. He has accepted a Sr.Analyst position in Burton group. The nature of the new job has forced him to resign from the various JSR’s and open source projects he has been involved. He could have stayed until the release of EJB 3.0 specification and Apache Geronimo has achieved the J2EE certification. But time and tide waits for none.

I wonder whether he will be able to continue writing. I still remember that I and many of my friends were introduced to EJB through his book. The cover page of the book, comes with the photo of a small wooden train and we all fondly named the book as “Train book”

Richard, thanks for your contribution to the Java community and good luck on your new job.

Javaranch seem to have reviewed the Whizlabs SCMAD simulator which I co-authored along with Sathya Srinivasan. The review looks positive and encouraging.

I will have to wait and see the positive impact of this review on the sales.