Nowadays, in this fast, ever-changing world, people are either too lazy to create wonderful applications or they can simply be too busy to code one. It can be true for all mobile application hobby developers like me. Be it on the Android, BlackBerry, or iOS (in alphabetical order, that is), you may have the brightest of idea, but cannot find the proper amount of time to code and make that into a working application.

App Inventor for Android is part of Google Labs that lets you build different kinds of applications for your mobile device. You do not need to be a professional developer to use App Inventor, as it does not require you to write code (hard-coded) but instead let’s you visually design the way the app will look like and let’s you specify on how it will behave by using blocks. Cool, isn’t it?

Since the App Inventor came from Google Labs, you can be assured of vast resources that you can tap freely from the web, not to mention from the official mailing lists and discussion boards sprawling all around the worldwide web.

If you’re a hobby developer, like me, and would like to get a hands-on experience developing Android applications, this book is for you.

TurfSite Manila’s Rating for this book:

4 out of 5 stars

Author Stephanie Krieger (a Microsoft Office MVP – Most Valuable Professional) was successful in this 835-page book in demonstrating to the average Microsoft Office 2010 and Office for Mac 2011 users how create and design effective Microsoft Office Word documents, PowerPoint slideshow presentation, and Excel workbooks with the least time possible. What’s best with this book is that the sample files are readily available online in the publisher’s website.

Whether you are a first time Microsoft Office 2010 or Office for Mac 2011 user, or a seasoned pro who started using the previous versions until Office 2007, this book is highly recommended for your reading pleasure.

TurfSite Manila’s Rating for this book:

Before the launch of Adobe Create Suite 3 (CS3) around three (03) months ago, a lot of people, including myself, were eagerly waiting on how will it improve the way people use their computers to design (graphics, web, and print). From September up to this day, it seems that not much people are adopting to CS3, primarily because to the fact that the software family is a little bit pricey — and pirates were given a hard time cracking the software (kudos to Adobe!).

If you want to jump start with Adobe CS3, then the Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Createive Suite 3 All in One book is right for you (ISBN 978-0-672-32934-0, US$34.99 / PHP1,432.58 at Amazon.com).

Sixteen chapters of the book were divided into three (03) parts:

1. The Suite
2. The Applications
3. The Projects

Discussed in the book are the following CS apps:

1. Photoshop CS3
2 .Illustrator CS3
3. InDesign CS3
4. Flash CS3 Professional
5. Dreamweaver CS3
6. Acrobat 8 Professional

This book could have been better if they had included a chapter about Adobe Fireworks, as I still believe that FW is better than Photoshop CS3 when it comes to web page designing.

Overall, the book succeeded in its aim: to give the reader a fast and easy start with Adobe Creative Suite 3.