OCA/OCP 8 Programmer Practice Tests AVAILABLE NOW!

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Jeanne and I are really excited to announce that our new book OCA / OCP Practice Tests: Exam 1Z0-808 and Exam 1Z0-809 is now shipping. In fact, we just received our copies today! The book is available in both print and digital formats from Amazon and other major book retailers. In addition, purchasing this book grants the holder access to Sybex’s interactive test bank!

This book serves as worthwhile companion to our previous two books, now available as set, The OCA / OCP Certification Kit. With this book you are really getting two books in one, as Jeanne and I packed over 1000+ questions into this text, covering both the OCA and OCP exams. To better prepare you for test day, we also threw in two simulated OCA/OCP exams. Whether your taking the OCA exam now and thinking about the OCP exam down the road, or taking the OCP exam and need a refresher on the cumulative material, this book has got you covered!

This book covers 100% of all exam objectives in these practice tests, which means you’ll be ready for:

  • Java basics, class design, and data types
  • Using decision and loop constructs
  • Building and using arrays
  • Methods, encapsulation, and inheritance
  • Mastering Java Streams
  • Working with the Date/Time API and Localization
  • Understanding design patterns and principles
  • Writing Lambda expressions and functional interfaces
  • Exceptions and assertions
  • Java File I/O (NIO.2)
  • Concurrency and localization
  • JDBC and database applications

Jeanne and I put a lot of time, energy, and planning into this new book and we really hope our reader enjoy it!

OCA/OCP 8 Programmer Practice Tests Kindle Edition Available

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pt-cover

Scott and I are thrilled to announce that the Kindle version of our third book, OCA / OCP Practice Tests: Exam 1Z0-808 and Exam 1Z0-809, is now available for purchase on Amazon! The paperback edition, available for pre-order, is currently printing is shipping in April.

This book, has over 1000 practice questions. Each exam objective has a chapter designed to focus you in on key points and reinforce them. The two practice exams closely simulate the real exam even telling you how many answers are correct.

Both the paper and Kindle editions come with free access to Sybex’s online exam simulator. The publisher has redone the simulator since our previous editions were printed. I got to beta test the software and was overall happy with the new interface.

my second 3D print

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After completing my test run, I didn’t have a lot of time so I wanted to start with something simple. Preferably one I could use as gift on an upcoming vacation.

I had taken a class a year or two on the basics of 3D printing which used TinkerCAD. I like that it is free and easy to use. I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve learned so will get to relearn when I have more time. I did remember enough to assemble two simple objects together. It seemed good enough for a first print. Here’s the design:

TinkerCAD lets you download a .stl file so I was all set to print. Actually printing it, I learned a few things about the software:

  • There’s a size option when printing. I thought it was inches. It’s not. It’s scale. I printed a bit bigger than I wanted, but that’s ok.
  • The abort button doesn’t work. Nor does the emergency stop. What does work is killing the power or unplugging the printer.
  • Closing the software doesn’t work on Mac. Force quit does. I’m not sure if this is a problem with the software or with Mono.
  • The status screen doesn’t let you command tab to it. Instead you have to do the show all windows thing to get to it.

It took a few hours to print (this printer is small so therefore less speedy than some others). It was tricky to get off the bottom of the printer bed. Online suggested a scraping tool. I couldn’t get it with a putty knife. What worked was a nail file.

And the result: