The web never fail to give me surprise. Just when I thought the free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop – Paint.NET and GIMP are good enough, I got to know another excellent alternative that I strongly endorsed.

Introducing http://pixlr.com – an online picture editor. It got 2 major advantages – it’s free and it’s online. It’s almost like web-based “Photoshop”. Once you click on pixlr editor, it’ll go into a workspace that is rather similar to that of Photoshop, though not as cluttered.

Those who have used Photoshop would surely love this free and convenient tool as you can easily edit picture – crop, resize etc. without launching the heavy-weight Photoshop.

Give it a try. I’m very sure you’ll love it.

If you ask me what is the next big thing to “learn to earn”, I’d say it’ll be apps development. More particularly, mobile apps development.

These days, everyone has a mobile phone at hand. I’m sure you see lotsa people carrying iPhone around with many owning the latest iPhone 4. Some may even own an iPad which is always a glance magnet.

Another popular mobile OS adored by many is the Android. Being an open source mobile OS, I somehow have a strong gut feeling that although iPhone caught the limelight now, in another couple of years, Android will definitely cut the chase and would probably be leading. Especially when many of the phone manufacturers will tend to lean towards the limitless Android.

While RIM and Win 7 Mobile are firing their engines, I can see that the 2 giants – iOS and Android are leading with a big gap.

So, how do you start developing apps? Learn iOS first or Android? Well, I’d suggest … go for Android for now.

Don’t know programming? Worry not. Google has just released a beta version of a WYSIWYG online apps creator with minimal (or no) programming knowledge required. It’s call the App Inventor. Do a search in Google.com on “app inventor” and you’ll realize it has just starting to accept applications.

It took me about 1 week to get approved. However, some of my friends and students who applied, even earlier than me, have no news on their App Inventor approval yet. Not too sure if it’s on a first come first serve basis. Anyway, go to http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/ and complete the application form https://services.google.com/fb/forms/appinventorinterest/ to apply for early entry to use this fantastic web app.

With Google releasing such a wonderful tool, it makes our entry into mobile app development a piece of cake. Start using App Inventor to create simple apps. Once you get the hang of it, you can then explore the more sophisticated programming part of it.

Let’s learn together!