[Book 52] Google Drive & Docs in 30 Minutes (2nd Edition): The unofficial guide to the new Google Drive, Docs, Sheets & Slides

Serial No.- 52

Google Drive & Docs in 30 Minutes

Category:- Informative Book (Computer Skills)

Book:- Google Drive & Docs in 30 Minutes (2nd Edition): The unofficial guide to the new Google Drive, Docs, Sheets & Slides

Author:- Ian Lamont

Language:- English

Publisher:- In 30 Minutes Guides

Published on:- January 26, 2015 (2nd Edition)

No. of Pages:- 112

My after reading review (March 27, 2020):- Google Office Suite - an online office suite on your chrome browser, sounds interesting.

I used to use Microsoft Office. Then for a while I use LibreOffice - an open source office suite. Now I move on to Google’s online office suite - Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms.

I had MS Office installed on my computer. My PC is full of large softwares like adobe suits and others. It’s running out of memory. I don’t use the office suite frequently and also I don’t use all softwares of this suite.  I only use word processing software (MS Word) a little bit. So kipping this whole office suite installed in my PC is unnecessary for me. I decided to uninstall and decided to move on to this online office suite. Google Drive & Docs is very light and fast, runs on your chrome browser and no need to install anything. Though it’s not as good as MS Office, it’s okay to do some basic task. And Google is constantly trying to make it better.

Before I start using this I decided to read this basic guide book. It’s a quick guide book, not an in depth one. Also it’s an outdated one, published in 2015. Right now it’s 2020. Till now so many options might have been modified. I haven’t found any new edition of this book.

This Google office suite contents following applications -

    Google Drive (Online file storage)

    Google Docs (Word processor)

    Google Sheets (Spreadsheet creator)

    Google Slides (Presentation creator)

    Google Forms (Online forms creators)

    Google Drawing (Diagram drawing application)

Though it’s an online office suite, it also has the option to work offline, which is cool. It has work collaboration facilities in real time. It also comes with the mobile app (android and iOS) version. Though there are some limitations in editing your files in mobile versions.

Main Article:- My Journey through the Ocean of Knowledge (Books)

Blog:- www.readingbookhobby.blogspot.com

Website:- www.karahaman.com

[Book 51] Photo Editing Basics by Margaret Brown

Serial No.-51  

Photo Editing Basics by Margaret Brown

Category:- Informative Book (Computer Skills)

Book:- Photo Editing Basics

Author:- Margaret Brown

Language:- English

Publisher:- Media Publishing Pty Ltd

Published on:- July 24, 2011

No. of Pages:- 32

My after reading review (March 24, 2020):- Recently I am doing a diploma in graphic designing. And right now I am learning Adobe Photoshop. To get more in depth knowledge I started reading different Photoshop related books. This is the first book I read and the most basic book out there. This book is a very short book, only 32 pages long. What I have learned so far about Photoshop is that this is the mother software for almost any image processing. All kinds of raster image related tasks can be done using Photoshop. And those tasks can be broadly divided into three categories -

1. Photo Editing
2. Graphic Designing
3. Digital Painting

Photoshop has a vast area of applications. Even the photo editing section in general is a broad area. It can be divided into several subcategories -
i.  Basic Photo Editing
ii. Colour Correction
iii. Photo Enhancement
iv. Retouching
v. Restoration
vi. Composition
vii. Photo Manipulation

This book has been niche down into only “Basic Photo Editing”. Only basic photo editing has been discussed here and niche down even more sub niches. These are -
a. Cropping
b. Resizing
c. Brightness
d. Contrast
e. Colour Adjustment
f. Cloning
g. Healing
h. Sharpening
i. Noise Reduction
j. Red-Eye Correction
k. Dynamic Range Adjustment

In this book the author didn’t describe those topics in depth. She just mentioned them in her book. Also those editing are so basic that it can be done using any basic photo editing software out there. Learning Photoshop is not necessary for those kinds of editing.

Whatever, after reading this book I came to know what basic photo editing skills contents. Soon I will read more advanced level books on photo editing and review them here. Keep reading my blog.

Thank you.

Main Article:- My Journey through the Ocean of Knowledge (Books)

Blog:- www.readingbookhobby.blogspot.com

Website:- www.karahaman.com

[Book 50] The Lean Marketplace: A Practical Guide to Building a Successful Online Marketplace Business

Serial No.-50

Category:- Informative Book (2. Business & Investing)

Book:- The Lean Marketplace: A Practical Guide to Building a Successful Online Marketplace Business

Author:- Juho Makkonen and Cristobal Gracia

Language:- English

Publisher:- Zaccheus Entertainment

Published:- 2018

No. of Pages:- 210

My after reading review (March 15, 2020):-  As an entrepreneur, establishing an online marketplace is my dream business. For a while I was planning to build my own online marketplace of digital intangible products. But I have no idea where to start, how to start and what to do to build an online marketplace. So I decided to read a good and updated book on this topic. And I choose this one “The Lean Marketplace”.

I know building a marketplace is not an easy task. As you need to solve the “chicken and egg” problem. You need to bring buyers and sellers to your marketplace at the same time. Sellers will not want to come if there is no buyer and buyers will not want to come if there is no seller in your marketplace. This is the most challenging part you need to solve.

I knew this is one of the most challenging (also most rewarding) business models right now. But after reading this book, it seems more tough than I expected. No work is easy, but this is seriously a hard one. You need time, you need financial power, you need lots of efforts, hard work, patience and goal oriented. You need to go through the “trial and error” process  again and again until you find what is working for your platform. You have to satisfy both sides of your marketplace  - supply side and customers. You have to consider your marketplace reputation, constant growth and lots of other important key factors.

After reading this book I realized that I am not ready to build a marketplace right now. This book opens my eyes. It helps me to understand myself if I am ready or not. This is the beauty of reading books. It helps you to prevent any mistakes. Books help you and guide you to do the work you want to do. It also helps you to realize if you are ready to do the job or not. So you do not take any foolish steps.

Whatever this is a great practical guide book on building an online marketplace. Authors describe everything in a great way with lots of examples of well established marketplaces, such as amazon, ebay, etsy, Airbnb, BlaBlaCar, Uber etc. They mentioned what those successful marketplaces did in their early days and what steps they are taking constantly to improve  The book is divided into three parts - 1. Getting Started,
           2. Building a Platform and
           3. Launching and Growing the Marketplace.
Though I feel that I am not ready right now, I put it in my business list. I will work on it in near future.

Main Article:- My Journey through the Ocean of Knowledge (Books)

Blog:- www.readingbookhobby.blogspot.com

Website:- www.karahaman.com