November 2006

Finally, I have booked the SCJP exam to be on the coming Saturday in Hong Kong. It is the first public IT exam for me. I’m very nervous now, since I think my knowledge is not enough yet.

The exam for SCJP 5.0 really gets a lot harder than previous version. It contains many new topics. In fact, the major reason that I think it is difficult is due to lack of programming. After I entered the current job, most of my office hours are dealing with documents and documents. I seldom have time and chance to work on programming. This makes me less practice on JAVA. Thus, to be a good programmer, do more programme!

I have just bought another book for the preparation of SCJP 5.0. Actually the topics covered in this new exam is quite a lot. When I tried the mock exam before, I just got a low mark. Compared to my result when I was studying in University, it’s really a big gap.

That’s why I decided to buy some more teaching materials, which helps me to learn more. The book I bought named as “Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5 Study Guide”, my version is a Chinese one. It is a recommendation from many of the web users who took the SCJP exam. Hope I can finish the book shortly and take the SCJP exam.

By using VMware, I finally can separate my research and development stuff from my currently using OS.

Previously, if I want to test a new software, I need to be very careful when I install and use it. It is because I was afraid that the software may bring unfavorable effect to my system, and caused errors to my system, which must be a nightmare.

Now, by using the VMware, a OS virtual machine, I can install another operating system for my testing. In case there is an failure caused, I can simply remove that virtual OS or install it again without causing bad things to my real OS.

Using VMware
In order to use VMware, I just downloaded the free VMware Player and simply use the pre-installed image. If you want to create your own virtual OS, you should use another version, which is VMware workstation. Workstation needs a license, but it offers you a 30-day trail. I used it to create my image, and afterwards, I just use the player. So, this measure doesn’t affect my use of virtual machine.

Reference:
http://www.vmware.com/

In log4j, you can configure the logging properties by several ways.

1. Through the log4j.xml located in class directories
2. Through the plain log4j.properties in class directories
3. Direct coding which is place in a class

The first two is recommended since the change of properties should be based on deployment environment. It should not be modified by changing codes. In fact, the manipulation using codes seems easier and you can at least make reference to the API to learn how to configure.

Here is a tutorial on setting the log4j.properties in Simplified Chinese.
http://hedong.3322.org/archives/000195.html