For those of you who are not sure where to start your J2ME learning, I thought this posting would be a great place to start. I will start with the books I have found useful in learning Java and then I'll post some web sites I visit often to learn. I hope that other self tought or school tought users of this forum will post there favoite books, web links or other materials used in there learning process.

To start, I want to list the books I found useful to me as a new programmer to J2ME. I had a little Basic programming knowledge, and used Visual Basic in the past. My new found love to learn a programming language started when I bought my first 3G phone (Sanyo RL-4920). Although the games and apps from Sprints vision site were alright, I wanted more. I wanted to try to make my own apps and games. Or even port over some games I liked.

So I needed to buckle down and start learning. I have read many books in the past 6 months or more on Java. This is where I started.

1) Java 2 for Dummies by Barry Burd, PhD - I know that some of you may think this is a baby book. But I have found in the past that if you don't know jack about the subject your tring to learn, books for Dummies is a good place to start. I learned advanced DOS this way, Java 2, Visual Basic, and so on. Dr. Burd gives you the basic knowledge so you can start understanding the Java Syntax. I like this book also because Dr. Burd includes his email address, which I've used in the past to ask him questions I had about his book. He answered in a timely manner by the way, and was very friendly. How many author's would give you advice, or even reply back if you knew there e-mail address?

2) Wireless Java: Developing with J2ME, SE by Jonathan Knudsen?s - This to me is the second book that a newbie should get. With this book you will start learning how to develop app's. Also you'll learn good programming habits, like planning your app with flow charts before development, managing your memory, staying within your device sytem limits and wireless networking development. This book is a little more advanced, but you should be ready if you read Java 2 for Dummies and really understand what you have read.

3) J2ME games with MIDP 2.0 by Carol Hamer - This book really goes deep into multi-player networking. Learn how easy it is to program games in the J2ME world, and how to use networking classes to enable head to head game play. Ms. Hamer has written several networking games of her own, like a multi-player card game and shares alot of her own code as examples for you to learn. You need a little more knowledge for this one as the scripts are for more advanced users to understand.

I will post next, some web sites that I have found useful to me. Some are Java 2 related (SE) and some are about mobile device programming in J2ME. I Look forward to seeing this post build up with useful links and great book advice. Learning should be fun. So have fun learning, then go program something everyone will enjoy.