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AWT and Swing Tutorials

I am relatively new to programming in Java but have an understanding of the language to be able to develop console based programs.
I am trying to create and understand GUIs and have researched using AWT and Swing.
Having found numerous tutorials online and each one saying different things I am wandering if someone experienced in this could maybe point me in the right direction of a straight forward tutorial for getting a GUI set up and more specifically positioning of components!
I know this is quite a generalised question but I'm hoping someone who has maybe learnt this aspect of Java previously can point me to the right places to get a good understanding of it.

Java Oracle Docs is a good way to start. Parallely Go for Java Swing GUI Tutorials by Lazic B on youtube. After you feel good in coding go for Advanced Videos in building Swing MVC Application provided by Udemy. 3 months ago i have learned from these and now feel much confident in building high level swing applications

2D graphics rendering in Java

I'm developing a game similar to pokemon (Yellow/Red/Blue) and I'm kind of lost on how to create an interactive map. Any thoughts on this would be helpful, I'm not even sure where to begin.

Try contacting Toni Epple and see if he will release an early version of his JavaFX Game Engine.
An article on using the framework as a TileEngine for Pokemon like games.
The engine makes use of the TMX tile map format and integrates JavaFX with Box2D for physics.
Here is SpaceInvaders in 175 LOC.
Even if you the engine is not yet available publicly, Toni's TileEngine blog entry should provide with some good background knowledge on how to get started.
Here is a YouTube link to the engine doing path finding on a TileMap and Toni has other demos in his YouTube account.
The Java Gaming forums provide excellent resources for Java game development and an active and helpful community.

You may want to learn to use JavaFX to develop your game.
Here is one tutorial, but there are many on the Internet:
http://carlfx.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/javafx-2-gametutorial-part-1/
I think that Swing is too difficult to work with compared to JavaFX, but it would be another option. For more info to help you decide you can look at this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1318645/javafx-or-swing

Resources for Android absolute beginner

I am a complete Android and C in general noob,
I have done a lot of web programming (which I am imagining is largely irrelevant here), some javascript (not jQuery just raw JS), I have also developed a .net app and done a course in java programming at uni last semester,
I know that Android uses Java in some places and C in others, I have looked at the SDK documentation here: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html
My aim is to build a simple dashboard widget that pulls data on a minute-by-minute basis from a JSON/JSONP API, I have thus far struggled to find any decent tutorials for real Android noobs such as myself, especially in the app widget category, If anyone knows of any good resources (online or books are fine) consisting of basic good practises, start-up guides and quick tutorials to get me up to speed would be great as I have absolutely no idea where to start (especially in the C end of things), I have found the SDK documentation does have some good stuff but it isn't exactly what I am after (built on very old builds of Android and thus most of the cool new features aren't integrated or taken into account).
Any recommendations would be very much appreciated!
On a side note, If all goes well with Android I would also be looking to move onto iOS so Objective-C start-up and tutorials would be great (Visual Quick Pro guide style would be perfect!)

I personally started reading and understanding the Android Application Fundamentals. Then I downloaded the Android ADT (Development Toolkit), configured it on Eclipse as well as the SDK (including samples).
Once that's set up, I started with the ApiDemos. You find its source code directly in the downloaded SDK <sdk-install-location>/samples/android-9/ApiDemos. Try to debug the code in the IDE, modify it and see how it reacts.
Finally, have fun :)

Well, I started with the Android developer documentation:
http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html
If that isn't as organized as you'd like for a complete beginner, you might want to try the FAQ since they have a lot of good tutorial links there, which happen to be very thorough:
http://developer.android.com/resources/faq/index.html
Once you get the basics, which the tutorials will do for you, the first link to the developer guide will be where you'll spend most of your time. There are even links in the guide for getting started with your IDE of choice, or getting started using no IDE at all.
To get a more specific answer, you'll have to ask a more specific question.

What is a good resource for help on codes to use for App?

I am a novice programmer when it comes to Java, I have Java:How To Program 7th Ed. that I am reading. My major is Computer Science so I have a little bit of knowledge about what yo do but as for the Application. I am trying to make a game app and was wandering what would be a good source to reference for various things inside of the app mainly the game play.

I'm not a very experienced programmer myself, but a general good idea is to read the Framework Topics in the Dev Guide on d.android.com completely. It gives a good view of what is possible within Android.
It's not a complete guide on how-to though, but it's good to see what Android is capable of before you start anything.
Plus indeed the online tutorials, but be careful as there are also a lot of tutorials for older versions of Android, which sometimes have deprecated stuff in them. And sometimes I found some tutorials which were simply wrong and had a lot of errors in them, so it's always a good idea to look at the comments on the article. But this is general internet knowledge ;)
Plus there are some books especially about Game development for Android.
(Beginning Android Games by Mario Zechner, for instance. I don't have the book but the title seems like something you need ;) )
If you want, you can also use adobe AIR to develop games for newer versions of Android.
Good luck.

As a beginner, you should not directly jump to game programming. You should first work on some Hello Wrold type programs. Go thorough the online tutorials. A lots of excellent material is available for free on internet. Best Luck.

JavaFX in the wild?

Does anybody know of any real-world web applications based on JavaFX? I'm an experienced Java programmer considering starting a website while I'm not at my day job. I don't have a lot of expertise on the UI side, so I'm looking for the best way to leverage my existing skills to create something that can provide an awesome RIA experience. Only trouble is, I don't know of any sites that are implemented using JavaFX, since it's so new. I'd like to see what it's capable of.

Found here quite an interesting stories. Top two listed below.
TweetBox
TweetFX

I think the best example of what JavaFX can do is in the examples on JavaFX.com.
However, it's still early in the JavaFX days thus you will be in pioneer days. Which means there are potential rich rewards to be had, but also - many unknowns.
What I think JavaFX "sweet-spots" are:
1 - If you either have Photoshop skills or are collaborating with someone who is - JavaFX provides the only real platform that lets you take Photoshop and generate a UI. Normally you mock-up in Photoshop and try your best to replicate, JavaFX can leverage it natively.
2 - You get all of the goodies from Java libraries "for free".
3 - Can leverage the UI skills to mobile (those that JavaFX will run on anyway).
However, if you are just wanting to have a Java GUI but would rather wait for more polish on JavaFX - I would recommend grabbing MigLayout & go with Swing on Java 6u10 or later.

There are a few JavaFX apps from the JavaFX Coding Challenge; my personal favorite is Music Explorer FX.
The new version of Indaba Music's software was written in JavaFX; the old version was in Flash.

In my personal opinion I would not use JavaFX for web. Simply because HTML5 is crushing everyone in sight. Now, I totally recomend the use of JavaFX for desktop applications.