Real World Web Services -- The core idea behind this book is simple: after years of hype, what are the major players really doing with web services? Standards bodies may wrangle and platform vendors may preach, but at the end of the day, what are the technologies that are actually in use and how can developers incorporate them into their own applications? The answers are here in this field guide to the wild and wooly world of non-trivial deployed web services. Sample Chapter 6, Project 3: Billing and Faxing, is available free online.

What's So Java About Sun's Linux Desktop? Sun attracted sharp criticism when it released a tightly integrated Linux desktop distribution under the name Java Desktop System (JDS). In this article, Sam Hiser writes that JDS is not only the very best, most complete, and thoroughly integrated GNU/Linux distro on the market, but it's also a testament to shared values for open standards and competitive functionality. Sam is a coauthor of Exploring the JDS Linux Desktop

O'Reilly Learning Lab: $200 Instant Rebate -- Learning programming languages and development techniques has never been easier. Using your web browser and Useractive's Learning Sandbox technology, the Learning Lab gives you hands-on, online training in a Unix environment. This month, receive a $200 instant rebate (and a Certificate from the University of Illinois upon course completion) when you enroll in any Certificate Series.

Groovy: Java's New Scripting Language -- When experienced Java developers hear about Groovy, their first reaction is often, "Oh no, not another scripting language." Ian Darwin had the same response--until he took a closer look. Ian shows you why Groovy is worthwhile, giving you the goods so you can judge for yourself. Ian is the author of Java Cookbook, 2nd Edition.

Annotations in Tiger -- Annotations in J2SE 5.0 (Tiger) bring a much-needed metadata facility to the core Java language. In Brett McLaughlin's IBM developerWorks columns, he explains why metadata is so useful, delves into Tiger's built-in annotations, and shows how to create custom annotations. Brett is the author of Java 1.5 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook.

Developing Your First Enterprise Beans -- One of the most important features of EJB is that enterprise beans have the ability to work with containers from different vendors, but selecting a server and installing your enterprise beans aren't trivial processes. Learn how to define the remote interface, create a deployment descriptor, deploy, and everything else you need to create and use your first entity bean, in this excerpt from Enterprise JavaBeans, 4th Edition.

Study Shows Safari Saves Time -- A recent study by The Ridge Group of Princeton, New Jersey found that Safari Bookshelf delivers savings of about 24 times its cost. The group found that without the use of an Electronic Reference Library (ERL), the typical technology professional spends an average of 31 hours per month looking for answers, researching issues, and helping colleagues do the same. Safari subscribers, however, report an average of 13.5 hours saved per month--nearly half the amount of time lost by people who don't subscribe. Test it out: get a free trial.

IRC Text to Speech with Java -- Paul Mutton creates a multi-platform IRC bot that uses the FreeTTS Java speech synthesizer library to convert IRC messages into audible speech. Why would you want to use an IRC text-to-speech system? By reading out messages as they arrive, you can keep working, diverting your attention to IRC only when necessary. Paul is the author of IRC Hacks.

Hardcore Java: Practical Reflection -- Reflection is one of the least understood aspects of Java, but also one of the most powerful. It allows you to build tools rather than panels, which adds complexity to your code but enables you to create systems that are much faster and cheaper to maintain. Learn all about it in this chapter from Hardcore Java. If you like this chapter, read the whole book (and up to nine others) on Safari with a free trial subscription.

Better, Faster, Lighter Java: Do One Thing, and Do It Well -- There's only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time. That's also the best way to code. Each bite of clear, simple Java code must have a single purpose. In Chapter 3 of Better, Faster, Lighter Java, you'll explore how to keep a maniacal focus on a single problem so that you can understand the problem; distill the problem to its essence; build effective, decoupled layers in the architecture; and periodically refine your approach. If you like this chapter, read the whole book (and up to nine others) on Safari with a free trial subscription.

Aspect-Oriented Annotations -- Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) and attributes are two leading-edge programming concepts, each with typical applications. By combining them, using attributes to indicate where AOP code should execute, you can effectively declare new Java syntax. Here's an introduction to this new technique, from Bill Burke, a coauthor of Enterprise JavaBeans, 4th Edition.

Using the ESB Service Container -- Dave Chappell discusses the ESB service container--a key architectural concept that provides the implementation of the ESB's service interface--in this excerpt from his recently released Enterprise Service Bus.

O'Reilly Corporate Services has a variety of ways to help your business, employees, customers, and associates. Take advantage of our bulk discounts when you're buying books for a work group, key customers, or internal training.  Consider bundling an O'Reilly book or integrating specific content, like an application's help files, with one of your products as a way to add value. Or save money on a Safari site license if there are five or more people at your organization who want to subscribe. There are many creative ways to take advantage of O'Reilly's content, online audience, and events. Find out how we can help at corporate.oreilly.com.

Handling Events in JavaServer Faces, Part 2 -- In the JSF event model, user actions take place in a client separated from the server, causing delays in the delivery of some types of events. Last week, Hans Bergsten used a sample application to examine how the JSF event model relates to the request processing lifecycle. This week, he implements event handling for parts of the sample application. Hans is the author of JavaServer Faces.

Handling Events in JavaServer Faces -- The JSF event model looks the same as that used for standalone applications, except with JSF, user actions take place in a client that has no permanent connection to the server, so the delivery of some types of events is delayed until a new connection is established. Learn how JSF deals with this difference by defining a strict request processing life-cycle, in this sample excerpt from JavaServer Faces.

BEA Making Open Source Inroads -- At the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in July, BEA Systems announced that it is expanding its dev2dev developer site through partnerships with O'Reilly Media and CollabNet. BEA's revised dev2dev portal will feature technical content from O'Reilly and collaborative software development tools from CollabNet.

Keeping Up with the Java Joneses -- Ian Darwin covers a variety of new Java 1.5 features, including generics, J2SE 1.5 threading, the return of printf, and the IDEs NetBeans and Eclipse. Ian wraps up this article with resources to help you keep up with the rest of the Java Joneses. Ian is the author of the recently released Java Cookbook, 2nd Edition.

Cooking with Eclipse, Part 2 -- Find out how to connect Eclipse to a CVS repository and how to use Swing and AWT inside of SWT for Eclipse 3.0, in this latest batch of recipes from O'Reilly's Eclipse Cookbook.

Creating Varargs in Java 1.5 Tiger -- Write better, cleaner, more flexible code by creating and iterating over varargs, or variable-length argument lists. Bestselling Java authors Brett McLaughlin and David Flanagan show you how in this excerpt from O'Reilly's Java 1.5 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook.