Java (formerly known as Oak) is my 'favourite' language. I took a couple of turns in my career, so it took till 2001 that I got started at University and immediately realised that I did like to write code. By the end of the second term I was of the ground and away. That was in 2001 and since then things have changed in the Java world (and in mine) and - amongst many other things - I have moved from the Netbeans to the Eclipse camp along the way ;).

What fascinated me from the start where the possibilities (and limitations) of Rich Internet Applications (or RIAs) and so that has been one focus of my development world. I also found the possibilities of Open Source Software and free software quite frankly fantastic. Both RIA and OSS to me have a strong anchor in the Java world.

I am planning to put up some more details on past java projects I worked on, along with some more links and brain dumps on Java - and maybe even an old applet (although that would feel sooo 1999).

Some Links;

History of Java
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~wwwbtb/book/chap1/java_hist.html

Java Island (Java ist auch eine Insel). Only in German but a great (open) book on Java
http://www.galileocomputing.de/openbook/javainsel7/

SourceForge, to  me one key repository of OSS and Java - a great place to look for code before you re-invent the wheel.
http://sourceforge.net/

Some links on Software Engineering and patterns in particular
http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/index.html
http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIPatterns/
http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/