semar,
if you're serious about this Java paper, I think it might be better to go for the real thing in form of -- at least -- a university certificate or diploma. At the Open University, you can select Java focused courses to obtain a diploma in computing. It'll take you a year to get that, and I believe it will be much more valuable for you in the end than a Sun Java certificate.
Check this out: http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?Q01D12
As for books, I have quite a collection of Java books in my shelf, and I must say that none of them managed to make me fall in love with the language. Anyway, Bruce Eckel's Thinking In Java is --THE-- book on the subject and extraordinarily well written. "Head First Java" uses a completely different approach and might be fun to read, so I would also recommend it. I also have a copy of "Java ist auch eine Insel" in my shelf, but frankly speaking, it's not one of my favourites.
But if you take that university course, you probably won't need an additional book because they give you all the study material that you need to learn the language.
But in the end, the very best reference that you can show is a finished project. Either join a bigger open source project or write a useful AND pretty open source application that people can download from your website. This will say more about your skills as a software developer than a certificate, diploma or even a masters degree. And it became what companies like MySQL AB for example are looking at to make their decision whether to hire you or not. Just a thought. ;-)
if you're serious about this Java paper, I think it might be better to go for the real thing in form of -- at least -- a university certificate or diploma. At the Open University, you can select Java focused courses to obtain a diploma in computing. It'll take you a year to get that, and I believe it will be much more valuable for you in the end than a Sun Java certificate.
Check this out: http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?Q01D12
As for books, I have quite a collection of Java books in my shelf, and I must say that none of them managed to make me fall in love with the language. Anyway, Bruce Eckel's Thinking In Java is --THE-- book on the subject and extraordinarily well written. "Head First Java" uses a completely different approach and might be fun to read, so I would also recommend it. I also have a copy of "Java ist auch eine Insel" in my shelf, but frankly speaking, it's not one of my favourites.
But if you take that university course, you probably won't need an additional book because they give you all the study material that you need to learn the language.
But in the end, the very best reference that you can show is a finished project. Either join a bigger open source project or write a useful AND pretty open source application that people can download from your website. This will say more about your skills as a software developer than a certificate, diploma or even a masters degree. And it became what companies like MySQL AB for example are looking at to make their decision whether to hire you or not. Just a thought. ;-)