Is Techlife really declaring it is the king of something? Well of course not loyal subjects, I mean readers. Kings are people and Techlife is but a vessel to share knowledge. And what is it again that I rule you ask? Tabs? Sit back and let me explain the kingdom of web browsing and open tabs.

Modern web browsers all employ the concept of tabbed browsing. A tab is a way of storing many browsing sessions in a shared window. Need to look up something but want to keep search window open as well, just open the search in a new tab. Visiting Facebook and need to read an article in your stream, open it in a new tab . The advantage of a new tab is your existing window remains as you left it. There is no hard and fast data on tab usage but in a recent unofficial Twitter poll, my usage of more than 60 concurrently open tabs outdistanced the rest by more than 35 tabs. (As I write this there are 73 open tabs in two browser windows.)

Why so many open tabs?

I use tabs for Techlife research of course. As well as keeping tabs on news of the day, shopping takes a few tabs for research and reviews, another for price comparison and yet another for the actual online store.

“So it came to pass that The Tab King began to worry about losing all the tabs.”

With all the open tabs Google Chrome rarely crashes and even when it does restoring the tabs is pretty easy. But yet, there are times when restoring the tabs is not easy and tabs are lost. I’m sure the astute reader says, what about Xmarks, the solution from a previous Techlife column? Bookmarking each tab is more of a chore and less a solution for short and mid term tabs.

The Elegant Evolution

Faithful reader Rob who has emailed back and forth suggested a new tool he found, TabCloud by Connor Dunn, a student at the University of Warwick, UK. This amazing tool allows a user to save the current tabs. But it does more. It lets you save them to the cloud. (Quick sidebar: The Cloud is another way of saying the internet, or more accurately not saved locally on your computer.) By saving your tabs to the cloud, TabCloud let’s a user access them anywhere.

“So faithful subjects of the realm, The Tab King was worry free and the brave reader Rob granted knighthood.”

Epilogue

“As The Tab King began to prepare for sharing the discovery of the brave knight Sir Rob with the loyal subjects, the King made yet another discovery.”  

TabCloud has an Android application and an iPhone and iPad webapp! The apps allows a user to access their saved tabs on their mobile device as well and it is as simple to use as the Chrome and Firefox extensions.

Here at Techlife we have had the pleasure of writing about many family and friends who needed technology assistance. Remember the reader who dropped his phone in the toilet? A fan favorite and a personal friend. How do I get so lucky knowing these folks?

As Techlife likes to pay homage to the greatest hackers, Moms, we have had past columns such as GeekDad happy for Mother’s Day and This Mother’s Day Tell the Truth. Well, now it’s personal. In a celebration of Moms’ ingenuity, I offer up How my Mom Hacked Gmail.

My mom plays this mental game with herself. Maybe you do too. “Technology is too hard, and I don’t get it,” she often exclaims. But in reality she does get it, just at her own pace. Which leads us to the recent multi-year process of getting a smart phone. Now you may be saying to yourself what special smart phone did she get that took a few years to arrive?

Well, once again this is my Mom. The smart phones have been here, it was her reluctance mentally that hadn’t turned the corner. She had a cell and a Palm and was eager to carry a single device.  After years her realization was,whatever she imagined as the perfect device still hadn’t been made apparently.

So she settled on a top of the line Android Powered G2 with Google. Immediately the questions begin. Her biggest was Palm Notes. She used the basic notes function and wanted something like it. A simple request. Searching the Market resulted in more than 1000 note apps. “But, son,” she said. Always there’s a catch, right? Hers was she wanted to access the notes even when in the basement of her work with no connection, she wanted changes to auto-sync, she wanted to search them, and wanted to organize them. So far there are still hundreds of apps that work, no problem Mom.

Life got in the way of the family helpdesk, a few days later the smart phone vs. the toilet and other tech foibles speaking circuit concluded, I checked in with Mom again and asked her how it was going.  Expecting to hear how she still had had 48 more apps to test drive in the notes. She said, “I just decided to use Gmail.” I cocked my head to the side like a dog does upon hearing an unfamiliar sound. Slowly I replied, “How does that work?”

My Mom’s Gmail Hack

1. Visit Gmail on Desktop and log in (not all Androids can do this on the device)
2. In the upper left click on Contacts
3. Under the New Contact Button, scroll down to “New Group”  and click
4. Enter a name, I chose “Notes”
5. Click the “New Contact” Button
6. In the “Add Name” field add a category such as Work, Home or School
7. Click the button with the “…” and enter the Note’s subject as the last name
8. Now begin entering your notes
9. Upon completion, click on the groups pull down and select “Notes” and leave “My Contacts” selected
10. Repeat for all your notes
11. Notes are searchable on desktop and handheld and synced to Google’s back end servers

Yep, my Mom took the simplest, easiest method she knew and adapted. Creating Gmail Notes, proving once again simple beats fancy every time. If you know her, call her a geek. She earned it. Happy Mother’s Day to all those moms.

Before Techlife or BT people asked me all sorts of questions both tech and non-tech related.  The questions were often, “How do you send an email to Bill Gates?” or “How do you hook up your modem to a pay phone like in War Games?” or “Will this version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? work with my first Mac?”

Then we entered the Techlife Era or TE and while the volume of questions has increased, the range of questions has become more varied. Many questions have shifted to opinion oriented as Google handles the more mundane tasks. Let’s answer a few of these today and make sure to take the quiz at the end of the column.

What’s the best way to save my bookmarks? – Erica L.

Probably your 250 links all dedicated to velvet Elvis won’t really be missed, but I understand each person has their own curated set of important links. For years I have been a big proponent of NOT saving them in my web browser. I once read a column by writer Jim Coates (great guy who I met early in my writing career) and his advice to his readers was a simple text file saved to a thumbdrive with all your bookmarks. Today I have transitioned to Xmarks. A free service to store all your bookmarks, let you sync them to any machine and back them up.

How could I save time when taking a photo and sending it to my friends? – Jeff K.

Stop taking them. If I get another picture of Mr. Pooky dressed for Halloween I’m calling animal cruelty. But if you are taking those oh-so-creative photos on an Android or iPhone then use a smart photo sharing tool. I prefer picplz because it can post to foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and the picplz site simultaneously. That time savings coupled with filters to play with your photo adds a bit of richness. Of course I think I just made it so you can now just take more costume photos didn’t I?

Could I have a smartphone without a data plan? – Carri K.

Only if you actually are willing to buy a smartphone already! But assuming you are finally ready to make the plunge, there is a little known way to legally and ethically hack the wireless carriers. Go unsubsidized and without a data plan. Likely you have a plan today that gives you a new phone every so many months. “Maybe now I will upgrade to the smartphone,” you are thinking. Don’t. Instead be willing to shell out full price (or go on Ebay) and get a model that will work with your carrier. This hack works well for SIM card users who put their old SIM card in the new phone. Now enable wifi at home and work, and a few other frequent haunts. Your smartphone will make calls and send texts but only use data when in wifi range. Your win, no data plan costs. Also no data “all” the time.

Quiz time: Microsoft has started a catchy campaign where users trumpet, “To the cloud!” Where did this phrase originate? Leave a comment if you know. No using the cloud to find the answer.

It is always surprising (yet really never all that surprising) when a reader contacts Techlife with a problem that leads to a massive discovery. In this case the problem was “How do I burn this?” from our friend Allan over at Scubaology.com. He had found a Grateful Dead concert he wanted as a CD.  But herein lies the surprise, it wasn’t the concert being online that surprised me, it was the location, The Internet Archive.

Ominous sounding?  Yes. Intriguing, even more so. The Internet Archive is an astounding non-profit all digital library. Like any good library, it would take hours to begin to explain the vast array of collections and how to access them.  So for this column we will stick with our aural sensibilities and examine the audio section of the Internet Archive. If you were looking for some new material for a workout, a long drive or flight around the world how does over 700,000* free digital recordings work for you?

How is that staggering amount of audio organized? I’m glad you asked:

• Audio Books and Poetry – 5,604 items
• Community Audio – 506,998 items
• Computers &Technology – 510 items
• Live Music Archive – 84,082 items
• Music & Arts – 2,203 items
• Netlabels – 23,970 items
• News & Public Affairs – 6,133 items
• Non-English Audio – 628 items
• Podcasts – 18,099 items
• Radio Programs – 1,947 – items
• Spirituality & Religion – 1,439 – items

And of course to add to the quirky yet completeness of this library The Grateful Dead is given their own top level category with 7,780 items; more items than 7 of the main categories as organized!

Within each category is of course plenty of subcategories.  I quickly sought out the Radio Programs category, which had a sub-category of Old Time Radio. I clicked on Browse by Title “A” and found 4 different collections of Abbott & Costello and in less than 10 seconds I was listening to the famous, “Who’s on First?” routine.

As with most libraries, this one appears understaffed.  It has 17 contributors for the entire audio section, which is likely why there were four Abbott & Costello collections with some repeats and some files with no descriptive text or titles.  But they also offer context for the content in the form of Top Downloads, Top Rated and Top Reviews. Each added piece of user-generated content makes the library all the more useful.  Plus there are many encyclopedia type entries along with great user generated tidbits while you listen.

Finally getting to Allan’s  request of burning a CD; Audio Player? Smartphone? CD? Streaming? However you listen the choices today of carrying your audio collections with you have made it easy to store, listen and access content. The Internet Archive’s Audio Archive Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain for example is available on the site to stream, in both low and hi-fidelity M3U format, two quality versions of the MP3 format and in an Ogg Vorbis format. Oops…did we forget to tell Allan how to burn that CD?  Ok, I’m just going to listen to one more song, I promise.

* Numbers as of 10/18/2010.  Note total item numbers might vary as with the example of Radio Programs – 1,947 items at the top level. There were eight sub-collections with a total of 4,195 items.  That is more than double the top level’s reported items.

Travel. That single word sparks thoughts of exotic beaches, hidden towns, memories, and enjoyment. Techlife has covered unique mapping tools, making your own maps, finding the perfect place to stay and more. Our diverse readership, You; often comment how much travel is a part of your life.

Meet Travelista (Techlife slang for Travel Expert) Anne Hornyak, who holds a Masters in Music; loves photography and travel; and has a day job advising Travel and Convention Bureau’s. We asked her to help Techlife readers with an education in what travel means in today’s super connected world of mobile sharing, bite size ideas, and off the path finds.

Techlife: How did you get started in the Travel and Tourism industry?
Anne Hornyak: I began my tourism career with Chicago Plus, a regional tourism office for Chicagoland. As a staff of one, I mostly managed marketing projects for the 17 Chicagoland Convention & Visitors Bureaus but also handled everything from finance to social media.

TL: What do you do today for the industry?
AH: I work mostly as a Social Media Strategist for tourism clients. I’m a cofounder of #tourismchat, a biweekly twitter chat focusing on social media in the tourism industry, and frequently tweet and blog about the same topic.

TL: Why is online travel and tourism so big? And how big is it?
AH: People love to travel and share their experiences with others. Social networks, especially Facebook, are perfect for this type of sharing. Many are also planning their trips, searching for the best discounts and then booking these trips, all online. Everything from Frommer’s to Budget Travel, Expedia to Priceline, Flickr to YouTube and travel blogs to a simple Facebook update about a friend’s recent trip…it’s all online. The travel industry is massive. Over 7.4 million U.S. jobs are directly related to it.

TL: How do you disconnect from the digital realm?
AH: I used to joke about needing a “social media detox” every once in a while but it has become rather habitual lately. Whether hiking in a state park or photographing lighthouses along Lake Michigan’s coast, I have to make time “off the grid.”

TL: What digital tips do you have for a traveler pre-trip?
AH: Research! Ask your Facebook friends and Twitter followers for recommendations and tips. Take advantage of CVBs (Convention & Visitors Bureaus) in your preferred social networks. Many of them are on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, and have blogs and interactive websites that can help you plan your trip. Find them on your network and connect before you travel.

TL: In-trip?
AH: Have fun! If you have a smartphone, send photos and updates to your friends on Facebook and Twitter but be sure that it doesn’t get in the way of your experience. If you’re on Flickr, upload your photos regularly so you can add descriptions and geotag them accurately.

TL: Post trip?
AH: Talk about it! Create photo albums on Facebook, upload Flickr photos and YouTube videos, write a special blog post and add write reviews to TripAdvisor. Share your experience with others who are in the research stage.

TL: As of this question being written you had 3,673 Followers on Twitter who have seen 16,406 updates via your username “WhosYourAnnie“. What’s one thing you never talk about? Why?
AH: Tweets about my family and personal life are usually kept pretty vague. The internet is public and safety is the primary concern. I’ve received a few google alerts for random things I’ve tweeted about my dogs. I don’t need to give stalkers extra information.

TL: What percent of your followers and updates are related to your career?
AH: I would say that 65-75% of my followers are somehow related to the travel industry, either as travel bloggers, CVBs, or people who just like to travel and talk about it. Probably 50% of my updates are conversational replies, most of which are to friends within the tourism industry, leaving around 30% as content tweets directly related to my career.

TL: Is Twitter your main channel?
AH: Most definitely! To me, twitter is all about connecting and having conversations. It’s a little surreal but some of my closest friends, a few I have yet to meet in real life, started as twitter followers.

TL: Last question, Who’s Your Annie?
AH: I’m your Annie.

Tell me, how I can help?

As a rule, the idea of calling or emailing a support service for help with a toaster, a lawnmower or your 1982 Emerson Lilac Purple boombox is akin to having a conversation with a bear at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  You know the metaphor, right? It takes a long time to get down to the bottom of a big endless hole.  Once there the conversation is pretty scary with you pleading that they understand.  More than likely you are left with growling.

Or there’s our way.

In a March 2010 Techlife column, we celebrated with you the reader how RDRR Labs was named a Top Android Developer by Google.  A few notes on this; RDRR Labs is a two person team including myself and a friend. Google’s definition of “top” was more than 3.5 stars and at least 5,000 downloads.  Nice qualifications.  But to us that was not “top” yet. At that time our most popular app, Timeriffic had just under a 4.5 rating and near 10,000 downloads and was available in a few languages.

We made an effort to improve. We added more languages, today we have eleven. We have added features and listened to our users and today have more than 50,000 downloads. Best of all we have increased our app’s rating to 4.56 stars and rising. And lastly we have gone on a customer service campaign and this is where the real magic has happened.

Our app is free.  We don’t need to listen to anyone. We want too. To listen even  better, we have a developed an easy error reporting tool to help us answer our users questions. And that’s where things get interesting.

A user reported our app was broken and would not work on his new Droid X. I should add his tone was more like we had stormed into his home, taken his Droid X and crushed it under our foot. In other words; he was mad. We tried a few calm replies suggesting various options to him. 20 emails later, the app was still not working. Now admittedly we didn’t have a Droid X. Could it be this one phone actually didn’t like our app? It was worth finding out.

Techlife reader to the rescue!  I sent a quick message to a loyal reader who had just been bragging about her new Droid X. She was happy to see if the app worked. She installed it and reported back it was great. I thanked her and now was really stumped. How could our app be showing errors so different from what was expected? I took another crack, with a long email detailing the steps our loyal reader had taken and how the app worked great. The email I got back was the key to the whole mystery.

Our efforts are exactly what you can do when getting or giving help. Stay calm. Look carefully at the problem from the user’s side and above all don’t give up. The email we got back detailed the issue and talked about a specific feature. A feature we didn’t offer! It was then I realized he wasn’t using our app at all! A quick exchange  and he replied how happy he was we had solved his problem. Case closed.

Loyal Techlife reader Dan contacted me again. (Other readers feel free to follow his lead.) Dan’s company wanted to convey “some information” and he was brainstorming with me and said, “What about a graph?” Now rule 1 of brainstorming is there are no bad ideas. And as I like to add, only bad people who rip on ideas that scare them.

So I listened. You could hear in his voice that this was an idea he was really loving.  He started really getting focused on this one idea.  About this time I said “info ick.”  ”Huh?” he replied.  I said take your idea one step further, Info-graph-ic.  Silence. Then even more silence. “What do you mean?”

“An infographic is a way of displaying more than data in a simple pie chart or a bar graph,” I explained.  Now fellow readers, you have the advantage here of being able to see our beautiful illustrations.  Dan needed a bit further explanation, and the definition I used was,  ”An infographic is exactly as it sounds. A set or multiple sets of information that is a graphic designed to inform, entertain and simplify massive amounts of somehow related data.”  ”I love it!” he burst out.

To illustrate a personal infographic, we directed him and all our Techlife readers to visit Brazil’s ionz personality map creation tool. (Click the flag in the upper right.)  With a few simple questions answered by you, nearly 50 points of data are relayed back and graphically represented against the other 66,000 plus people who have participated in these questions.  They even let you save your infographic as wallpaper for your computer.

Can anyone create an infographic?

Probably not. To effectively share unique information, you need both the information and someone with skills to help you craft your design. With many of our past columns we often offer a how-to, so this seems like a little departure from our normal advice. It is.

How to create your own infographic

Ok fine…We want you to be a success and feel good so here’s a small step by step to making a great infographic.  Be warned this is not for the timid.

Step 1 – Collect your Data  - How many engineers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Step 2 - Review your data’s key findings – Clients love Fed Ex over Bernie’s horse and buggy delivery service.

Step 3 – Pick out how multiple findings might overlap/be juxtaposed. – People who love French Fries also enjoy French Films.

Step 4 – Visually represent your data. – If this icon represents our purple hair customers then this map of Cleveland will be used to show growth of superball sales.

Wow I was wrong, just 4 steps that was easy. Next time…prepare for quick lesson in particle nuclear physics.  My sincerest apologies for that last comment to all our friends in the physics department. We all know chemistry has the grand daddy of all cool infographics – The Periodic Table of Elements.  Physicists are always lamenting that, but hey maybe now they too can make their own.

If you make a cool infographic, be sure to share it with us.  Who will be the first to design an infographic  with all the bad jokes this column has compared to useful information?

We* are hobbyists just having fun developing for Android, but Google sure knows how to make our day.  Check out the email we got.

From: Android Market
Date: Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 3:46 PM
Subject: Device Seeding Program for Top Android Market Developers
To: rdrr.labs@gmail.com

Subject: Device Seeding Program for Top Android Market Developers

Due to your contribution to the success of Android Market, we would like to present you with a brand new Android device as part of our developer device seeding program. You are receiving this message because you’re one of the top developers in Android Market with one or more of your applications having a 3.5 star or higher rating and more than 5,000 unique downloads.

In order to receive this device, you must click through to this site, read the terms and conditions of the offer and fill out the registration form to give us your current mailing address so that we can ship your device.

You will receive either a Verizon Droid by Motorola or a Nexus One. Developers with mailing addresses in the US will receive either a Droid or Nexus one, based on random distribution. Developers from Canada, EU, and the EEA states (Norway, Lichtenstein), Switzerland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore will receive a Nexus One. Developers with mailing addresses in countries not listed above will not receive a phone since these phones are not certified to be used in other countries.

We hope that you will enjoy your new device and continue to build more insanely popular apps for Android!

(email links removed)

RDRR Labs has:

Timeriffic with near 4.5 stars and way more downloads.
24 a beta app has 3.8 stars and way more downloads.
Brighteriffic has near 4 stars and way more downloads.

*Update 1: “We” means, a friend who does the code and Techlife’s lead writer who does visual design for Android apps.

What is your organization’s magic number?

Searches resulting in your website? Visitors to your brick and mortar store? Subscribers to your social media page; fans, friends, feeds, readers? For each business owner the answer is different.  I propose the answer is: 1,000 Loyal Customers.

Recently an excited Techlife reader called about to start a business.  They had some great long term ideas on their success once they had tons of website visitors.  But they were missing the element of growth in their plan.  I politely listened to all their excitement and unbridled energy.   But when I asked how would they get their first 1,000 Loyal Customers they didn’t know.

A Historical 1,000

In the days of the general store in America, small towns would have a single store that carried a wide variety of  products.  Often times this store was too small to carry all the things people would need, so a proprietor would stock catalogs from various places allowing a patron to pick out items that could be ordered and shipped to the store for future pickup.  This made the customer loyal, partly because they had no where else to turn, and partly because in small towns supporting a local business was good for the whole town.

Fast forward to today, where there are megastores with megabrands advertising on megastations offering megasavings if you spend megabucks.  Three example companies that have grown into megabrands Google, Ebay and Amazon don’t manufacture any “real” products (yes Amazon does have the Kindle, to push the purchase of more ebooks.) These three company’s are general store’s of data.

What is a Loyal Customer?

A Loyal Customer for most organizations is a person who actively seeks out your brand.  Loyal customers aren’t swayed easily to switch brands.  Loyal customers refer their favorite brands to others.  Loyal customers ride out a small problem or a price increase.   Most important of all, Loyal Customer’s return again and again.

1,000 Loyal Customers is admittedly simple math which states for each employee an organization needs a 1,000 Loyal Customers who return $100 net profit each year.  Good examples of unique organizations with easy to spot Loyal Customers are local restaurants, local clothing stores, museums and summer camps.  In each of these examples if the organization releases a new product or revenue stream Loyal Customers eagerly support the effort.

Techlife was once again inspired by Kevin Kelly, who’s column on 1,000 True Fans is aimed at artists such as; painters, musicians; photographers; writers and more.  His goal is make those artists realize having a megahit is hard, but achieving 1,000 True Fans is enough to sustain the artist comfortably.

Start with One

When expanded to organizations, readers of Techlife are able to use online tools like websites and social networks to connect and build their community of 1,000 Loyal Customers.  It may seem daunting, but break it down.  Who are your Loyal Customers today?  Where did you find them?  Will they refer you to the next Loyal Customer?

Share with us in the comments.  How many Loyal Customers do you have today?  What’s your goal?

A good idea before a bad economy has turned into an even better idea during a horrendous economy. Freecycling. While many people use Ebay to sell items for money to anyone and other people use Craig’s List to sell (and sometimes trade or give) items somewhat locally, there is another option, Freecycle.org. Started in 2003, the non-profit organization is basically a simple way to offer items you no longer want to people who might want them, the only catch: everything is free.

Initially Freecycle was conceived as a way for people to offer items to non-profits, and non-profits to respond if they wanted them. It quickly expanded to include anyone, anywhere and now there are 85 countries and near 5000 local group made up of 7,000,000 people all following the same set of principles. Let’s fill up fewer landfills with items that other people might care to rescue.

It is recycling with a few well thought out rules. One of the biggest is letting people join any group, but keeping in mind each group is based on a small geographic area such as a town, or county.  As such groups vary in size.  The other important rule is what you can’t offer including no listing illegal items, tobacco items, alcohol, firearms, people, pornography, or medicine of any kind. Each local freecycle group is run by volunteer moderators who enforce the rules and the very specific way to offer, inquire and list items.

Most groups use a simple email list tool called Yahoo Groups to share their items and indicate items they are looking for or items that have been taken.  Techlife has been a user of YahooGroups since 1998, as a long time user who was introduced to this great service by Alan Braverman, employee #1 at YahooGroups (formerly eGroups) we asked him what he thought of Freecycle.

“Freecycle has a great mission.  It is gratifying to know something we all worked so hard on more than 10 years ago at eGroups is not just being used but growing, growing a great organization and supporting such a beneficial cause as saving the environment and helping people recycle.  Grassroots movements have always been great at adapting new technology, but with close to 5000 groups and 7,000,000 members it is clear that Freecycle.org is successfully spreading a positive message worldwide.”

How to Freecycle?

Easy! First make sure you have a Yahoo ID with an email associated to it, this lets you access any of the nearly 4800 local freecycle groups which use the Yahoo Groups email list system.  Once you have a Yahoo ID, visit freecycle.org, and sign up for an account with the other 7,000,000+ members all over the globe, of course sticking to your little area of it.  (Krakow, Poland has 231 members for example!)

To join a local group, search for your hometown and you will likely get at least one town nearby if not a few hundred.  Sign up on freecycle.org and make sure you use the same email as associated with your Yahoo ID (little known fact, you don’t need to use your Yahoo email as your main email).  Then select one or more groups, each which might have a slightly different set of rules but all following the same overarching principal.

Click “Join this Group” and away you go.  I joined quite a few groups in my area, each with a different feel.  One let me join right away, another had a lot of “we are looking for quality and people who give not just take” and yet a third let me browse the current listings before even joining.

Start listing your items and you will soon have a few people who want them.  Arrange a pickup and you are done.

Is this for real?

While your experience may vary, I was looking over items here at Techlife HQ and considering what we should recycle with the locals when emails started coming in for various items; some candles, a dsl modem and a working Palm Tungsten T.  I have a friend who still (tries) using their Palm but was complaining how it was getting pretty old and not always working.

I replied to the original poster indicating when I could get the device, drove over, picked it up and in just a few hours I had completed my first freecycle.  I plan on giving my friend this one for a backup device.  Plus it was saved from a landfill. (Thanks Marija!)  Your mileage may vary, but if all you want is a clean basement, here’s a great easy way to make that happen and keep the Earth a bit cleaner.

Freecycle.org is a Techlife must try.  It is easy.

Thanks to loyal reader Brad for sharing his experience and introducing us to Freecycle.  Please email or comment ideas for sites you find amazing.  It’s our own little way to recycle.