I've gathered that in order to change the background color of a row,
one can either use the tablecellrenderer or can override the
prepareRenderer() method. I have chosen to override the
prepareRenderer() method. My question (and a reather silly one) is
exactly how to call this method to then color your rows.

I already have a jtable with is autogenerated by netbeans and all of
the code I've seen, the jtable is created programmatically.

Here is what I TRIED to do (any help is greatly appreciated):

public void updateGUI(String newValue){
DefaultTableModel errorTableModel = (DefaultTableModel)
parentScreen.jTableErrors.getModel();
int numRows = errorTableModel.getRowCount();
numRows++;
errorTableModel.setRowCount(numRows);
parentScreen.jTableErrors.setModel(errorTableModel);
Object newObjectError = (Object) newValue;
parentScreen.jTableErrors.setValueAt(newObjectError, numRows - 1, 0);

JTable coloredTable = new JTable( errorTableModel )
{
public Component prepareRenderer(
TableCellRenderer renderer, int row, int column)
{
Component c = super.prepareRenderer(renderer, row, column);

String message = (String) getValueAt(row, column);
String[] dividedMsg = message.split(":");
if(dividedMsg[0].equals("Error: ")){
this.setBackground(Color.RED);
}
else{
this.setBackground(Color.YELLOW);
}

return c;
}
};

parentScreen.jTableErrors = coloredTable;

}