Android Open Handset Developers Community

I have found a book fishing the net. It basically deals with Android, not absolutely from a beginner level. But this can be of help. Please take a look at it and do not forget to post a reply back here.

"Android Essentials" - Apress (July 2008) By Chis Haseman

Check it out.

Thanks for sharing the reference: I have found it on P2P and had a look...
uhm more than 100 pages, I definitely have not time to read it
In any case, hereunder are the contents, FYI.

Of course, if you are interested, I suggest to buy it (just 13.99$ the electronic version and 19.99$ the paper one).

Chapter 1: Introduction 1
What You Need to Know to Start 1
How to Best Use This Book 2
Getting Started 2
Installing Eclipse 3
Getting the Android SDK 3
Installing the Eclipse Plug-In 4
The Android Project 5
Running, Debugging, and Causing General Mayhem 8
Chapter 2: The Application 9
Getting Active 9
Getting Splashy 10
Creating the Intent Receiver 19
Setting It Up 19
Seeing the Intent Receiver in Action 23
Triggering the Activity 26
Who Do You Want to Humiliate Today? 29
Nervous with the Service 29
Zen and the Art of Getting Even 33
Moving Data in Android 34
Shameless Self-Promotion 36
Adding Evil Corporate URLS with a Content Resolver 38
Part of This Balanced Breakfast 39
Chapter 3: User Interface 41
Easy and Fast, the XML Layout 42
Laying Out 42
Scrolling, Text Entry, Buttons, and All the Simple Things in Life 51
Waking Up the Widgets 55
Widgets in Java 59
Getting Under the Hood 59
Custom UI Rendering with the Canvas 67
Customizing the View 67
Creating the Game Loop 69
Bringing It All Together 74
Using the User Interface 74
Chapter 4: Location, Location, Location 75
Where Am I? 75
Building the LocationManager Object 76
Look Up, Wave, the Satellites Are Watching… 77
Google Maps 80
A Metric Ton of Map Objects 80
Moving the Map 82
Taking Stock 84
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane...Nope, It’s Bad Photoshoping 84
Wrapping Up 87
Chapter 5: Taking Android Out for a Walk 89
Loading a List from the Web 89
First Things…First? 90
Getting the Network in Gear 92
Putting the Data in Its Place 94
Making a List and Checking It…95
The Setup: Embracing the List 95
Adding the Adapter 96
Stuffing Data into the Adapter 98
At Last, Adding the Data 99
Selection… 100
The Next Step 102
Dressing Up the Menu 102
Looking Back 106
Chapter 6: Tying on a Bow 107
The Making of an Application 107
Looks Aren’t Everything, Except, of Course, When They Are 107
Location Isn’t Too Important, Except When You Need Pizza at 4 a.m. 108
Taking Off Android’s Leash and Letting It Romp Around the Internet 109
Overall 109
Other Sources of Information 109
Getting Help 110
It’s Time to Stop Reading and Start Helping 110
Copyright 112

kyinx,
I am sure that a lot of free resources on Android development can be found right now, and even more will be available in the near future, in line with the open source spirit. The aims of this community are exactly to discuss and share useful information on the Andorid platform. Hence, feel free to ask for specific information, to share your technical or non-technical point of view on different aspects dealing with Android handsets, programminig issues and so on, but please don't think to use this board for disseminating links to illegitimate contents. Other people's commercial work has to be respected.

The Admin

Hi my frineds,
I am actually reading this ebook:

IMHO it's a good way to start knowing the Android platform.

This is the table of contents:

1 What Is Android? 1
Brief History of Embedded Device Programming 2
Open Handset Alliance and Android 5
Introduction to Android 6
2 Downloading and Installing Eclipse 9
Why Eclipse? 11
Downloading and Installing the JRE 12
Downloading and Installing Eclipse 18
3 Downloading and Installing the Android SDK 21
Downloading the Android SDK 24
Downloading and Installing the Android Plugin for Eclipse 24
Configuring the Android Plugin for Eclipse 30
4 Exploring the Android SDK 35
What Is in the Android SDK? 37
Android Documentation 38
Android Samples 39
Try This: Run the API Demos Sample Application 41
Android Tools 45
APIs 48
Application Life Cycle 49
Standard ASP Application Life Cycle 49
Android Application Life Cycle 50
5 Application: Hello World! 53
Creating Your First Android Project in Eclipse 55
Examining the Android-Created Files 61
AndroidManifest.xml 62
Referenced Libraries 62
Directories 63
Hello World! Again 69
Hello World! Using an Image 72
Hello World! Code-Based UI 75
Hello World! XML-Based UI 78
Try This: Use TextView and ImageView 81
6 Using the Command-Line Tools and the Android Emulator 83
Creating a Shell Activity Using the Windows CLI 84
Running the ActivityCreator.bat 85
The Project Structure 88
Creating the Hello World! Activity in the Windows CLI 95
Editing the Project Files 95
Adding the JAVA_HOME Variable 96
Compiling and Installing the Application 97
Hello World! on Linux 109
Configuring the PATH Statement 109
Try This: Create an Image-Based Hello World! in the CLI 115
7 Using Intents and the Phone Dialer 117
What Are Intents? 119
Using the Dialer 124
Placing a Call from Your Activity 128
Adding the Intent to Your Activity 129
Editing Activity Permissions 131
Modifying the AndroidPhoneDialer 136
Adding a Button 136
Implementing an EditText View 141
Try This: Modify the AndroidPhoneDialer Project 145
8 Lists, Menus, and Other Views 149
Building the Activities 151
Intent Code for the .xml File 152
Intent Code for the .java File 154
Modifying the AndroidManifest.xml 155
Using the Menu 157
Creating the Activity for AutoComplete 163
Button 173
CheckBox 178
EditText 183
RadioGroup 189
Spinner 195
Try This: Modify More View Attributes 202
9 Using the Cell Phone’s GPS Functionality 203
Using the Android Location-Based API 204
Creating a kml File 205
What Is a track File? 208
Getting the nmea File in Windows 208
Getting the nmea File in Linux 210
Reading the GPS with the Android Location-Based API 212
Creating the AndroidLBS Activity 212
Passing Coordinates to Google Maps 222
Adding Zoom Controls 226
Try This: Toggling Between MapView’s Standard and Satellite Views 232
10 Using the Google API with GTalk 239
Configuring the Android Emulator for GTalk 241
Implementing GTalk in Android 244
Creating the Activity’s Layout in the GoogleAPI.xml 245
Adding Packages to GoogleAPI.java 247
Implementing the View.OnClickListener 248
Compiling and Running GoogleAPI 252
Try This: Add a Settings Feature to Your GoogleAPI Activity 255
11 Application: Find a Friend 257
Creating a SQLite Database 259
Creating a Custom Content Provider 263
Editing the strings.xml 263
Creating Your Content Provider 265
Creating the FindAFriend Activity 276
Editing AndroidManifest.xml 276
Creating the NameEditor Activity 278
Creating the LocationEditor Activity 283
Creating the FriendsMap Activity 293
Creating the FindAFriend Activity 299
Running the FindAFriend Activity 302
Try This: Real-Time Location Updating 305
12 Android SDK Tool Reference 307
Android Emulator Commands 308
Android Debug Bridge Commands 310
Index 313