Useful Web Sites

• http://java.sun.com—This site is the home of the Java platform and provides all of the latest news and updates about Java. Among its vast amount of features, this site includes the latest releases of the J2SDK for downloading, a large developer's community (which you may sign up to), and many useful online tutorials.

• http://www.javagaming.org—This site is supported by Sun Microsystems and is designed to support the making of games using Java technology for any range of programmer. This site includes tutorials and maintains a large community of forums full of experienced Java programmers who will answer your questions in no time. In saying that, the current forums are so vast that they should cover a lot of your questions already. (We won't give you our usernames on this site to save us from embarrassment, in case you happen to notice some of the questions that we might have posted to the boards.)

• http://www.javaworld.com—This site includes many tutorials and columns covering a wide range of topics with contributions from programmers all around the world; it also contains many forums for you to post questions. You could one day post a useful column on this site, if you become good enough.

• http://www.mysql.com—This is the home site for the MySQL open source database. This site includes important downloads that we will discuss in Chapter 15 when we look at using databases for storing online information and connecting to it via JDBC (Java Database Connectivity).