The latest book in my "Effective Software Development Series" is now out:
Effective Enterprise Java, by Ted Neward. I don't pretend to be a
hard-core Java or Enterprise guy, but I really enjoyed watching this book
unfold as it was being written. It's filled with pragmatic advice from a
guy with lots of experience who knows how to explain what he is talking
about. If you're a Java developer in an enterprise environment, or if you
just like a well-written book that's filled with useful insights about
programming enterprise systems, I encourage you to give this book a look.
Right now, it's on sale at Amazon for about 1/3 off
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321130006/qid=1095719933/sr=8-1/\
ref=pd_csp_1/104-5668479-8651933?v=glance&s=books&n=507846),
and no, I don't get a kick-back if you buy via that link :-)

As long as I have your attention, let me remind you about my upcoming talks
in Germany (Stuttgart and Berlin) and Canada (Vancouver at OOPSLA). There
are links to all the talks at http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html,
but at the time I wrote those descriptions, the talks existed only in my
head. I'm now done with two of them ("Better Software -- No Matter What"
and the revamped "Design Patterns, Templates, and Policy-Based Design"),
and I have to say that I'm very pleased with the way they came out. If
you'd like to see a description of one or both of these talks that was
written after the talk was done (so I *really* knew what would be in it),
let me know, and I'll happily send you an updated description. One of
these days the new descriptions will make it to my web site, but I'm
holding off on that until I finish the last new talk I'm working on for
Germany, "What's New in Effective C++?"

Scott