Java date/time manipulation, formatting and conversion can be very tricky with things getting even more complicated when timezones are taken into consideration. A lot of developers (even seasoned ones) often run into problems when playing with date/time values. Provided are a ready reference of some common date manipulation/formatting tricks that have been tested in java 1.5

Iterating through collections in jsp using JSTL and Struts tags can be confusing, especially since the attributes can be a little hard to figure out. Here’s a ready reference of some iteration examples that may help.

Environment specific configuration of Java applications usually require changes to properties files before the application can be deployed. We discuss here how this can be achieved using ant tasks.

In earlier versions of jdk, the only way to get some kind system level information was through the Runtime class. Jdk 1.5 however, introduced the OperatingSystemMXBean, through which OS level information can be obtained easily.

While creating a Flex chart from an ArrayCollection is relatively simple, using data from an xml for the chart is apparently not as straightforward, especially if the xml has childnodes deeper than a couple of levels. This example demonstrates how to convert xml (returned from an HttpService call to a servlet) to an ArrayCollection and use it as the datasource for a chart.

One of the ways to integrate a Java application with a Flex front end is by using Httpservice with XML. Aimed primarily at Java developers new to Flex, this quick start guide describes how to populate a flex table using xml returned by a servlet.