Java Threads, 3rd Edition -- The new edition of this classic book shows you how to take full advantage of Java's threading facilities, and it brings you up to date with the significant changes in Java 2 Standard Edition version 5.0 (J2SE 5.0). The book incorporates the concurrency utilities from java.util.concurrent, and new chapters cover thread performance, using threads with Swing, threads and Collection classes, thread pools, and threads and I/O. Get a thorough, step-by-step approach to threads programming. Sample Chapter 5, Minimal Synchronization Techniques, is available free online.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 -- Learn how to create a custom perspective in Eclipse, and how to speed up the JDT Editor, in these sample recipes from O'Reilly's Eclipse Cookbook.

SafariU: Create, Customize, and Share Teaching Material -- Looking for a way to truly customize your course textbook and offer students exactly the material you choose to teach, while saving them a good bit of money? Become a SafariU beta tester and check out the new web-based publishing platform from O'Reilly that allows you to create custom textbooks and online syllabi.

Criteria Queries in Hibernate -- James Elliot shows you how to use simple criteria and compound criteria, apply criteria to associations, and query by example using Hibernate, in this excerpt (in PDF format) from Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook.

In Better, Faster, Lighter Java authors Bruce Tate and Justin Gehtland lay out five basic principles to combat the bloat that has built up over time in modern Java programming. Justin applies these same principles to programming in .NET in this article, Better, Faster, Lighter Programming in .NET and Java.