Having a keyboard on-screen was the obvious solution when the pc became small and portable but I've found them tedious and annoying to use, especially having to switch from lower case to caps and back again. This keyboard and case is the obvious beautiful answer. I was surprised at how thin the keyboard is, just slightly thicker where the (supplied) charging cable plugs in

Pairing to my Samsung tablet was easy, eight steps according to the Instructions though in my case it took less, step seven says enter a four digit code shown on the screen, I didn't see that but it paired anyway. The case and stitching is good quality and the tablet can easily be placed at an angle, there are holes for the side controls and camera. Magnets hold the keyboard in position which is good because it can easily be detached from the case if you want to type away from the tablet or take that out and not use the case at all.

If you are fed up with on-screen typing this keyboard case is the perfect answer but do check your tablet's dimensions because this case comes in different sizes for different Samsung models.

If you want an up to date book on Stephen Shore this is the one to get. Based on an exhibition of his work that's touring Europe from September 2014 until September 2016.

The book is landscape with 275 one to a page photos in the portfolio section, though the Print-on demand (2003-10) chapter has dozens of thumbnail size photos from the 2002 Apple iphoto concept. The first fifty-five pages have two illustrated essays, one of these is an excellent Q and A between Shore and David Campany, particularly interesting because it reveals a lot about Shore's approach to photography, influences and nicely some technical detail concerning his cameras and color.

The portfolio pages are cross-section of work from 1964 to 2013. Those familiar with Shore will recognise many photos from 'American surfaces', 'A road trip journal' and 'Uncommon places', all pre-1990. Other chapters look at archaeology (1994) New York (2002.2) Ukraine (2012-13) and Winslow, Arizona (2013).

I've looked through the book several times and still enjoy seeing the same photos, especially the Americana series from the seventies and early eighties. Despite so many of these just being shots of commonplace they hold a visual interest time after time.

A welcome fourth edition of Francis Ching's excellent book on the fundamentals of architecture. Ching (now seventy-two) seems to have cornered the market on accessible visual book on the subject, I already have his 'Building construction illustrated' and the 'Visual dictionary of architecture'. This new edition of 'Architecture' uses the highly pictorial format as all his books.

Each of the seven chapters starts with drawings of very basic forms and then expands the concepts using flat plans and dimensional illustrations of buildings (all of which have a caption with location, architect and date) to reveal the essence of structures through the centuries. Can the subject be that simple? Well, of course not but Ching makes it seem so by explaining the principles in straightforward way.

One of the lovely features of the book is that it all hangs together with one look, rather than use photos of buildings of varying quality they are all illustrations and obviously tie-in with all the flat plans and other graphics. I've read a criticism of his books because they are set in the Adobe Tecton type which some consider rather unreadable (the foont was based on his first book which was entirely hand-lettered by Cassandra Adams and she did the drawings too) I slightly agree but fortunately all the text in his books is essentially short and long captions rather than pages with columns of text set in Tecton.

The book is ideal for students and the general (curious) reader.

A beautiful book of 127 plates from this relatively unknown photographer of the New York school. Levinstein's work was not really unknown in the Vivian Maier sense because he did have pictures published in photo magazines of the period and also in the Family of Man exhibition (and book) and other MoMA shows. Professionally he worked in advertising and graphic arts with photography a passionate hobby.

The excellent front of book illustrated essay by Bob Shamis explores Levinstein's life in New York during the late forties and into the fifties. (very little seems to be known about his early years). He was influenced by Alexey Brodovitch and especially Sid Grossman of the Photo League.

The book's front cover photo of a man's back, taken at Coney Island in 1955, is so typical of Levinstein's style. Page after page of body parts full of detail and tension, a favourite are close-ups of people's hands behind their back, or just legs of people at Coney Island, or faces of people looking elsewhere rather than the camera. What I really liked about the book is the sequencing of the photos as you turn the pages and it really makes the images work for the viewer. Most are from New York during the fifties to the eighties. Levinstein was a regular traveller and there are a photos taken in London, New Orleans, Los angles, Paris, Mexico and nine in Haiti.

The book is an excellent production (175 screen on a cream matt art) with one photo per page and it will reveal Levinstein's personal style of photography to a wider audience.

Published in 2000 this book joins an expanding collection of titles that look at the visual aspects of London Transport over the decades. Author David Lawrence takes a more focused view by closely looking historically at the way LT used their logos based on the famous roundel and horizontal bar. Its not obvious until you look through the pages that there were so many variations, each form of transport -- trolleybus, tram, buses and Green Line -- had their own logo and this was just surface transport, the Underground added more.

By the thirties the basic logo was well recognised and non-transport companies borrowed the idea, page forty-eight has one for Northmet who generated electricity for trams and homes in north London and beyond. Page fifty-one shows five designs by Hans Schleger minus any lettering in the horizontal bar. By the late eighties the roundel had a formal appearance that lasted into the new century: a red circle, white inside and a dark blue band with Edward Johnson's type in white.

The book is full of color illustrations (especially logos) with black and white photos, pleasantly designed and in an almost square format. A slight error on the Contents page, someone left out the page numbers to the seven chapters.

*David Lawrence has revised and expanded the book for a new edition with 176 pages (ISBN 9781780672960)

I thought maybe these small cylinder magnets might work on our glass magnetic board but apparently not. The nice lady at the marketing company who handles the sellers account said they are N35 and not the top grade N52 type. Of course, use them anywhere else and they work a treat though being quite small two side by side are best to hold cardboard or several sheets of paper to a magnetic wall board or refrigerator.

I did discover an additional use for them: as a toy. The packet rightly says keep them away from the under fives but my eight year old grandson enjoyed playing with them on a table, making various shapes and watching them automatically swing back into a straight line. A simple but effective plaything.

Color expert Katrin Trautwin has written an intriguing book (actually two sections in a slipcase) about black and color, it's primarily aimed at architects and interior designers. She writes about the different blacks and in particular Ivory Black made from charred animal bones. Because this is expensive the commercial mixing industry uses carbon black for paints, printing inks, plastics et cetera but this can't offer a really solid velvety black.

The nine essays and lists in the book analyse color used by architects, especially Le Corbusier who, with Amedee Ozenfant in the 1920s, used their theories for colors inside Modernist houses. They thought specific pigment mixtures, always natural ones, could influence how space is perceived. Color could help in four functional ways: Atmospheric; Constructive; Dynamic; Decorative. The book quotes the Decorative function using glazes, patterned wallpapers, mural and tapestries as helping to modify the appearances of surfaces within three-dimensional structures.

I mentioned that the book is in two parts. One has the essays (in English and German) and the other has twenty-four color samples which fit inside the second book's pocket. These samples, roughly 10.75 by 9 inches, are very impressive to look at and feel. To get really solid, deep color they have been screen printed on white card. There are sixteen shades of black only using Ivory Black for printing. Sheet eight is just called Black, a lovely solid, velvety color, the other fifteen are equally strong and powerful but have tinges of red, blue, purple, green and brown yet compared to the other color sample sheets anyone would say they are all black. Ultramarine blue, Champagne white, Deep red and Gold bronze plus four greys make up the eight other sheets in the set. Incidentally because these sample sheets are screened with rich, solid colors they need to be handled carefully because they will show up any marks made on the surface.

The first book has some interesting color theories and their practical uses but it was the richness of the screen-printed samples in the second book that made it all come alive for me.

One of the paragraphs in the book's introduction starts with: So how is it that Dorothy and Shep are almost unknown today? Basically because their work, although very wide ranging, wasn't the type that easily fitted into design history books. The most common reference is Shepherd's airbrush and design work for Wrigley's gum from the thirties to the sixties and the book has over thirty wonderful examples of this (several a spread wide).

The Wrigley connection with the Shepherd's lasted for years with creative work to sell the gum, all kinds of design for the Wrigley owned Santa Catalina island and for the Chicago Cubs. There nineteen whole page Cubs programs included though I don't think they have the graphic flair of the gum posters.

For a strongly visual book it's a treat to look through and a handsome production by Harper Design. Just over ten inches square with more three hundred images. With Hathaway and Nadel's book Dorothy and Otis Shepherd come out of the shadows at last.

Two things set this small speaker apart from plenty of others on the market: its unusual shape and the sound. Though the very top is round the sides are made up triangles making it look quite attractive. No controls are visible apart from the hands-free phone control on the top, all the other controls are on the bottom: volume; previous/next track; play/pause. It's the sound that I was impressed with because unlike other small speakers this one doesn't emphasise the bass which suits me because I listen a lot of jazz and non-pop music. If a pulsating bass is important maybe this speaker isn't for you.

The Bluetooth pairing was no problem with my tablet (just search for S-608 on your screen) and I was off with recorded tracks or streaming music stations on the net. The speaker comes with two cables, one for charging via your pc's USB port and one to connect an audio source to the speaker, this is rather short at 5.5cm but any length cable will do with the appropriate jack at either end. Unless I'm listening to music on the net I much prefer to use an audio cable and so not have to bother with the speaker's battery running down.

For the size and room filling great sound, least for me, I thought this speaker was a winner.

The book is the second helping of Phil Bergerson's fascinating photos showing handmade and commercially produced signage in faded urban areas across the US. The previous title (Shards of America) had sixty spreads revealing shop windows, building and walls, this newer book extends the theme by including several commonplace landscapes.

Bergerson has a knack of finding visual conundrums in the everyday city or town environment, the sort of thing no one notices until you see them in these photos. One of the things I really like about his work is the evenness of color, whether it is a mid-distance landscape or a close up of a scrap of paper stuck on a window. Combine this with some very intriguing compositions and this becomes a book of photos that delivers on every return visit.

The layout follows the successful photo book format: all of them are eight inches square, centred on the page with generous margins, a location and date caption complete each page. The only downside, in my opinion, are the two essays front and back of the photo section. Neither really considers Bergerson's work, Margaret Atwood writes about debt and wealth while 'Sequencing' by Nathan Lyons is a remarkable elitist written essay on framing and sequence in photography. Fortunately the essays only occupy nine pages of the 158 in the book.