Jini is Sun's attempt to make transparent distriuted computing a reality. So what does this mean? Imagine living in a world where you could move to a new office in another country or check into a hotel and plug your notebook or PDA directly into the network at that location. Your notebook would be immediately recognized and have access to the services at that location--without having you go through complex setup procedures in an unknown environment. Jini is Sun's Java-based technology that has the potential to make this possible.

But this kind of technology, which will be so simple to use, is not easy for the programmer to implement! Newmarch's book is the best place to learn exactly what you will need to know in order to enter this brave new world. Newmarch's comprehensive treatment of Jini technology starts with the basics of how Jini clients, services, and devices join a Jini network and how clients use the Jini lookup service to see and use services in the network. After covering the basics, Newmarch moves on to explain how events and security are handled in the Jini framework. The last half of the book gives detailed coverage of many advanced topics that most books skim over, including how to use Jini with CORBA, transaction, user interfaces for services, and remote events. There's even coverage of how to use Jini for robotics applications, using the popular LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention Kit as the vehicle!