go to www.sun.com. you will find a lot of tutorials
out there.

Sun provides some great tutorials  for java. Bruce Eckle also has a Thinking in
Java book that can be downloaded for free.

Sun Tutorials
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

Bruce Eckle
http://www.mindview.net/Books

Thanks that points me in the right direction, I couldn't find anything
from Sun's web page. Maybe it is just me?

there are plenty of resources in java  tutorials, code samples, projects,
books etc.

Its important for me to know

1) you background (computer knowledge, work experience etc)
2) how do you plan to study (buy books/tutorials/training etc)
3) what topic in java you want to master (servlets/swing/JSP/EJB etc)
4) what is the time period you look to complete

To tell you abt me first, I am into the field of training softwares (sp.
java, Adv. java, EJB, JSP, CORBA, VB.NET, C#) from last 4 yrs.

please write me these details i will be able to suggest you some plans as
per your profile.

1) I am a computer professional with over a decade of experience. I
first started out in BASIC, and did some Turbo Pascal, Quick BASIC,
Visual BASIC, and C programming. My strong points right now are Visual
BASIC and Active Server Pages.

2) I am dirt poor, cannot afford any books. I am trying to work my way
out of a hole. The economy is bad, and I lost three jobs in the past
two years doing Microsoft technologies. I want to try my hand at Java
or C++ and see if the Non-Microsoft shops will treat me better. For
now I was just acceppted for disability because of all of the
illnesses I have, but I don't get paid until June of 2003, have to
wait five months. The Microsoft based IS shops treated me really bad
and caused me a lot of stress and well let's just say it is a long story.

3) I am not really sure. But JSP would complement my ASP skills. Maybe
Swing and EJB to complement my Visual BASIC skills.

4) I got all the time in the world, almost. Nothing better to do
besides eat, sleep, and spend time with my family and friends. I just
have a problem concentrating at times, due to my disability, and
sometimes it takes longer for me to learn  something.

if you want some help i can arrange some ebooks in java  and j2ee for you. i
will also try to get some other topics ebooks as well i will keep it in my
briefcase and send a mail in this group so all those folks who want can download
it.

Thanks that can help me a lot. I also need to learn  OO Programming, as
I am new to it. Thanks a lot.