Monthly Archives: December 2015

OCP Book Now Available!

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OCP: Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 8 Programmer II Study Guide: Exam 1Z1-809

Jeanne and I are thrilled to announce that the Kindle version of our second book, OCP: Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 8 Programmer II Study Guide: Exam 1Z0-809, is now available for purchase on Amazon! The OCP paperback edition, available for pre-order, is currently printing and will be shipping in the next month.

This book, which is nearly twice the size of our previous OCA Study Guide, is chock full of information on topics ranging from design patterns, to concurrency and NIO.2, to JDBC. Unlike many other older study guides, we have written our material centered entirely around Java 8, with an emphasis on lambda expressions and streams.

While some experienced developers can pass Oracle’s OCA exam with limited amount of studying, the same cannot be said for the OCP exam. Besides the large-scale inclusion of lambda expressions and streams, the exam covers includes much broader topics that seasoned developers may not be readily familiar with.

For example, you might have been using JDBC for years, but can you list the differences between obtaining a connection using the 3.0 and 4.0 versions of the drivers? You may have also been reading and writing files with java.io streams for years, but we bet many of you haven’t ever used the mark(), reset(), or skip() methods. It is for reasons like these that we strongly recommend you study carefully for the exam using our book or an equivalent study guide, avoiding the pitfalls (mentally and financially) of having to pay to take the exam multiple times.

Our book covers all 3 variations of the OCP exam, including a dedicated Appendix for those taking the Java 6 or earlier version of the OCP 8 upgrade exam, as it contains material not found in the other two versions of the exams.

We hope you enjoy reading this book as much as we enjoyed writing it!

replying on my ipad

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I “lost” my iPad two days before Thanksgiving. I went to mentor at Stuyvesant High School and forgot it there. I knew exactly where it was (in the teacher’s closet), but wasn’t going 9 days to retrieve it. This meant I didn’t have an iPad for a little over a week. It was interesting to see what I missed it for.

2 factor
This was the big one. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to log into something without a big hassle due to not having Google Authenticator on my app. I have an alternate factor set up for some services, but not all. Luckily, many services remember you on the same computer.  It wasn’t bad at all:

  • Amazon: I wanted to set up two factor on Amazon now that they offer it. Not a big deal. I just did it now that I have my iPad back.
  • Github: I was going to look up something in the browser, but needed the second factor. I was able to get the info at the command line though so it was ok.

Reading on the couch

I usually use my iPad when I want internet on the couch. Especially for reading RSS feeds; which I decided to wait until I had my iPad back. This is something I only do once or twice a week anyway.

Note taking
If I had my iPad, I would have used it to take notes at the JavaSIG. Not a big deal. It is easy enough to replace this step with paper.

There are other things I use it for. Luckily none of them came up in the week.

two factor on amazon

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I enabled two factor on many sites last year. Amazon is a bit late to the party, but they finally have two factor support. While they waited a long time, they did a good job with it.

Sign up was easy. They give you a choice of an authenticator app including scanning with your device to connect. Or you can use a mobile phone number for voice or text. Or you can use a landline with voice. You can set a second of these options as a backup. I like that there were choices.

You are also asked if the current device is trusted. Which is good as you don’t get prompted repeatedly from your main/home computer.

I also took this opportunity to check on twofactorauth.org to see if any other sites I use have added support. I was disappointed by how many banks don’t support two factor. I tweeted at four of them with the link on the page. (I don’t have accounts at all four).