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?

Ever wanted to draw that perfect circle?  Or maybe make hot ice?  Head over to Techlife’s new favorite time sink edu-site, WonderHowTo.com a site with over 230,000 videos and articles organized by category (as of December 2009.)

WonderHowTo.com has both human and algorithmic judging to determine a video or article’’s true educational nature.  Their community of users is always submitting and organizing new how to videos and how to articles.  This increases the chance this do-it-yourself content will be useful.  They also let other users rate content on an A, B, C scale so you quickly know how well a video or article actually instructs.

In their FAQ they even explain this is not a sales site, and videos from infomercials or clips from how to DVDs are not allowed.  This helps keep the content spot-on.  Their categories are quite varied and include something for everyone.  (Categories listed below).

In addition, they have a Wonderment category, which is a great trove of interesting content not all of it How-To, with provactive titles such as: Eat Your Wedding Dress, Tree in a Jar and Learn the Na’vi Language of Avatar.

Ever wanted some bar tricks to win free drinks here are a few choice options: Move a Trapped Dollar under a Bottle, Big Coin through a Small Hole, and our favorite Make a Fork and Spoon Defy Gravity.

They even have a series of videos from Michael Jordan on various instructional aspects of playing basketball.  Ever wonder How to do the Crossover by Michael Jordan.  Now you know.

What is your favorite How to video or article?  Post it in the comments.

WonderHowTo.com’s Categories

• Alcohol
• Arts & Crafts
• Autos, Motorcycles & Planes
• Beauty & Style
• Business & Money
• Computers & Programming
• Dance
• Dating & Relationships
• Diet & Health
• Disaster Preparation
• Education
• Electronics
• Family
• Film & Theater
• Fine Art
• Fitness
• Food
• Gambling
• Games
• Hobbies & Toys
• Home & Garden
• Hosting & Entertaining
• Language
• Magic & Parlor Tricks
• Motivation & Self Help
• Music & Instruments
• Outdoor Recreation
• Pets & Animals
• Pranks & Cons
• Software
• Spirituality
• Sports
• Travel
• Video Games
• Weapons

Dear Techlife,

I was in my office, my second office, and it happened.

My precious smartphone, tumbled out of my hands, bounced off my leg, I reached for it and it grazed my fingers.  I watched in horror as it gyrated like a diver in the Olympics and did a perfect entry, with little splash at all, but a resounding, plop into the watery depths.

I shut my eyes, muscled up the courage and reached my hand into….the toilet.  My goal, rescue my precious smartphone from what must be a Blackberry grave.  Wow that water was ice cold.

As I expected the poor baby was dead.  I am distraught, what can I do?  How can I dry my wet phone?

Sincerely,

Deep Bowl Diver aka Fumble fingers

Dear Fumble Diver…

It’s not as bad as you would think.  As you might imagine you aren’t the first to drop an electronic item in water, or more specifically a phone into a toilet.  Shh…it happens, to everybody, well not me, but everybody else.

Even better there is a solution to easily and cheaply dry out your phone!

Will the solution work for you or any of our other readers is clearly a case by case basis, but the solution is pretty simple.  Rice.  Yes, rice.

+   =  

Rice cooks in water by absorbing the moisture it is sitting in, like a sponge.  To dry your smartphone try these simple steps:

1. Open the phone, if possible (iPhones exluded.)
2. Remove the battery, SIM card and storage card.
3. If it is a clamshell, open it fully.
4. Pour uncooked white rice into a bowl.
5. Submerge phone, battery, sim and storage cards in bowl of dry rice completely for 3 full days.
6. Remove, reassemble and power on.

Your luck will vary based on many factors, including the length of time the item was submerged.  Also before you call your carrier and claim, “It just stopped working. I don’t know what happened.”  All mobile phones have liquid activated stickers inside them in a few places.  This helps a technician know if you have had water damage normally not covered by your warranty.  So Fumble Diver, try the rice first, you already voided your warranty.

Finally, a quick comment about the bathroom referred to as your second office.  I am sure there are plenty of readers who nod their head in acknowledgment of that reference.  Newspapers, books, magazines are commonly brought to the office bathroom as a place to get some reading down.  You might call it multi-tasking.  A bit of office bathroom smartphone etiquette:

• silence your smartphone in the bathroom
• no calls in the bathroom

Follow these two simple rules and we won’t have any problems.  No one wants to hear you jabbering away about how some widget will be delivered on time or how your weekend drinking binge turned out.  We also don’t want to hear you playing Pac-man or Bejeweled.  Spare us your awesome dexterity.

Author’s note: Great news!  Fumble Diver reported back before we went to press.  After just 1 day, the phone was powering up and working but had water spots on the LCD screen.  That’s when we reminded Fumble Diver about step 5, part 2 – 3 full days.  Do you have a way to beat the smartphone blues?  Tell us.

One word: Mashup.

We have covered mashups in the past, see the archives.  Basically a mashup is taking two or more separate things and combining them.   In our column we often cover technology mashups so today is something a bit different.

A little over a year ago, Steve Speirs created the website HundredPushups.com.  The concept was simple to inspire and help people achieve a goal that seems difficult to most, to do 100 consecutive pushups. Wait, wait — don’t go.  Don’t stop reading cause, ewww he mentioned fitness and feats of strength. I know this is the holiday season and Festivus is upon us.  But you can do this.

Steve’s idea is something we often pass on to clients.  When you are sharing information, keep it simple.  HundredPushups.com provides an easy to follow six-week plan, some simple printable worksheets and that was it.  The interest spiked enormously due to the simplicity.

Even better Steve’s community of fans stared building mashups.  For regular readers there are three iPhone/iPod touch applications that act as digital tracking tools for people in each of the three programs.  Swedish developer Viktor Nordling created a web app for those regular Techlife readers, pushuplogger.com.  Finally, a fan named Eddie created the mashup for you long time readers, a Pocket Mod of the entire program that fits on a single sheet of paper in foldable Pocket Mod format.  This was my favorite item.

Steve was inspired by the outpouring for his well crafted website that he soon rolled out the sequel, twohundredsitups.com.  Same concept, different muscles, new goal. Most recently he launched twohundredsquats.com.  Steve’s brilliance was to keep all three sites nearly the same.  Fans who understood one program can easily start the next.

Now for mashup, the Techlife challenge.  I sit behind my monitor way to much.  Cranking out good articles for the faithful.  I have started my new year’s resolution early and I want you to join me.  My goal stated publicly, is to achieve the Techlife 500. The goal is to max out with being able to do in a continuous test, one hundred pushups plus two hundred situps plus two hundred squats totalling 500 reps.

Who’s with me?  Add  a comment below if you are joining and feel free to check back here and update us on your progress.

Today marks a new carrier, Verizon coming on board with Android with two new devices under their Droid line.  The Motorola Droid and the Droid Eris by HTC are sure to be holiday hits, and when people start looking for good apps from the Anrdoid Market, Techlife wants to make sure you have our top 10.

Our friends at Phandroid, started this idea with 5 people listing their top 10 apps so we thought we’d weigh in with our own list.  This is done in that format, with a bonus app!

Long time Phandriod/Android Forum guy, using a G1 since the start…here’s my top 10.

1. Timeriffic – FREE – control wifi, brightness, audio and more with a simple timer, saves your battery. (full disclosure I collaborated on this)

2. Weather Widget – FREE – Beautiful weather app, with great options. This sits on my main home and I use it all the time.

3. UltimateFaves – FREE – Creates a quick 3D Ring of anything you want a shortcut too, calling people, applications, your choice. Unique interface.

4. Visual Voicemail – FREE – Does what it says, constantly working on it and updating, very responsive devs.

5. Mobile Defense – FREE – Find (gps), disable and more for your phone (USA only). I hope I never need it. Also is stealthily hidden.

6. ChompSMS – FREE – SMS replacement with an iPhone style chat interface

7. SMS Popup – FREE – Wakes phone display and plays audio and shows a small overlay of the most current SMS message. Flawless.

8. Cestos Full – FREE_- Multiplayer online game, arcade style, if you have a few minutes, it’s great. Good community too, with built in chat.

9. iMeem – FREE – Great web streaming radio customizable. Like Pandora, but without choppiness and massive battery drain. Albeit a slightly smaller catalog and some battery drain.

10. Battery Widget – FREE – easily see your exact % of juice left. Pressing the widget offers up toggle settings for a few options too.

Bonus App – Wallr – FREE – For those wanting a low resource option for changing their look, this app looks in a designated wallpaper folder and will randomly select a new wallpaper, on a schedule you set up. Mine is 1 per hour.

Thanks to our friends at Androlib.com for links, and images.

Black border. Large eye-catching photo. Large white text. Smaller white sub-text.

If you are like most readers, you will have already read all four posters before you looped back to the top of this article. That’s ok, because I designed it to happen just like that. As I designed the layout, I realized this column’s regular text would have far less impact than usual. As a writer that’s a tad depressing. As a designer I loved it!

This column is not the history of motivational posters. Nor is it the effect of motivational posters on lazy folks. Apparently the motivational poster’s impact on taking the stairs versus an escalator was so compelling it was funded numerous times over multiple continents. We get it. Enough already!

I created these unique Techlife posters in just a few minutes, using Big Huge Labs: Motivator, to create my own motivational poster. It was easy. Here’s how to build your own motivational poster or de-motivational poster in 3 easy steps.

1. Select a masterpiece - The photo should be eye catching and keep your attention long enough to draw you in.  After you have your photo you click Browse and attach the photo.  You also should review the photo’s focus area, as most likely it will get cropped.  Motivator allows you to designate one of three areas which might be best to keep visible.  You also get to choose a landscape or portait orientation for your photo.

2. Channel your inner Shakespeare - Penning the perfect word and sub-text is no easy task.  Are you trying to be funny or serious?  Will your words live forever or be forgotten quickly?  You may even find yourself selecting a new photo for the ultimate fit with your perfect prose. Perfection is personal.

3. Click and Share – Hit the big blue “Create” button.  A few seconds later your motivation masterpiece is rendered.  After reviewing how you will change the world you can edit, save, upload, email, share and even get a high-resolution version of your image by clicking the associated button.

Techlife Challenge – Motivation is powerful.  Parody is funny.  De-motivation is a form of expression too.  For this challenge share with us your favorite self-created poster.  We’ll see about getting some prizes, but until then we’ll award the famous Techlife Points!  213 for each entry with the best in each category getting 4002.  Judging purely subjective and nonsense.

Note:  The posters shown here are meant to motivate you to read past Techlife articles.  MASHUP for the “Flash Earth – Ultimate Maps Mashup.”  TRAVEL for “Travelistic.com, YouTube with a Purpose.”  CREATIVE for the “Alan Becker’s Animator vs. Animation.”

It’s already here!  Time to start thinking about what your favorite syndicated columnist wants this holiday season.  Peace?  Goodwill?  If you can deliver them, by all means.  My guess is that you might be a few credits shy of making that one happen.

So a quick reminder how this works.  I make a list of cool, affordable awesome. (That’s right, awesome is a noun too.)  Readers race to purchase said awesome and deliver it to me. The first reader to deliver each item earns points. (The points are new for 2009! Creative, right?)  Wait a second, have you never read this before?  If not, the idea behind “My” Techlife Gift Guide are things that I want.  Self-serving?  Yes.  So let’s begin!

I loved the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.  Their newest economic’s masterpiece, Super Freakonomics (yeah I said it) arrives just in time for the “big economic season.”  How fitting! I can’t wait to read it. (First delivery = 1001 points)

Call me old school, but look who’s back. Mario. Make that New Super Mario Bros. for Wii. Think back to the side scrolling days from NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Gameboy, DS….hmm I guess these guys must have Levitt’s Freakonomics. Give the masses more of what they crave, economics 101. This newest installment has our favorite plumber able to play in 4 player mode. Let’s go rescue the Princess, together! (First Delivery = 3029 points)

Our world relies heavily on power. Laptops, games, phones are power hungry. Batteries are great, but sometimes it would be nice to use the solar power staring me in the face. I want the Brunton 26 Watt Foldable Solar Array. First off, I’m not a solar expert so I need something easy.  With more than 15 reviews and 12 5 star reviews at Amazon, it seems like a great option for keeping me powered up. And hey this one benefits the buyer too, it means more Techlife can be written and delivered. No more “my power went out” excuses. (First Delivery = 8359 points)

Finally, here’s something that each reader can get me. A Pix-Star digital picture frame with FotoConnect. Why this specific model? Because if offers the chance for each frame to be able to receive new photos without a PC! With just an internet connection, it can share photos, be addressed via email, pull up photos from Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Windows Live, Smugmug, Photobucket, Shutterfly, MobileMe, and more. It means you can update your gift to me with new photos whenever you like. How cool is that? And the kicker, no monthly fees to boot. (Each Delivery = 1304 points + bonus 293 points per photo sent)

These gifts give you a great idea of what I am looking for this holiday season. Please be generous and give your favorite writer something they can’t live without.

From where in the world is Matt Lauer to Carmen Sandiego to Waldo this is an age old theme (at least to the mid 1980s.)  And now Google has their own twist on the classic called, “Where in the World?“.

Techlife readers come to learn, engage and discuss at our little corner of the world.  Be it a reader who stops me on the street, emails in a suggestion, or comments on an article in the online site we welcome the interaction.  We have heard from thousands of readers, and while not everyone gets featured in a column, sometimes they get a mention.

Today’s column harkens back to our early days, as our newest find we stumbled upon all on our own.  This little secret game is almost hidden, I would call it an easter egg, yet it is sitting there in the open.  We have always covered neat visual tools here at Techlife. From our review of Picasa in “Picture Perfect” to “Life Poster: A Picasa How-To” to our most recent “How to Create Online Tilt Shift Miniature Photos” we have covered various fun things to do with your photos.  Now we will explore other people’s photos.

Our adventure started one day when a reader sent us trip photos.  Are you a little surprised?  Don’t be.  We get lots of fun things from the great readers of Techlife. After viewing the photos, I noticed the tab, “Explore”  near the Picasa logo, next to “My Photos” and “Favorites.”

Hey I love to explore!

So I clicked, you are taken to a pseudo homepage with a few interesting sections, each of which could take hours of time to Explore.  There are 12 “Featured Photos” which sort of change if you hit refresh, though same stay.  Then there is “Recent Photos” which you can watch in a slideshow format.  There are also 40 of the most “Popular Tags”, which is a method for indicating what a picture contains is about.  Popular tags include, wedding, vacation, lake, house, birthday, beach, flowers, you get the idea.  Then in a small corner is our hidden gem.

Titled, “Where in the world?” and a button stating “Start Game” with this simple explanation, “Check out photos from around the world and guess where they were taken!”  As Sherlock Holmes said, “The game is afoot.”

In a great mashup of their own tools, Google has used Google Maps and Picasa along with Geotagging to create their game.  (Geotagging is a method for tagging a photo with location data, indicating where on the blue marble we inhabit a photo was shot.)  Play is simple, you guess where the photo they show you was taken by clicking on the map of the world.  Sometimes the photos contain clues, subtle or obvious.  Your score for that photo is determined by how close your guess was to the actual location of the photo.  The closer the better.  You get five different photos per round.

The game is strangely addicting.  Five clicks and you get a score.  Then you want to beat that score, then you convince yourself you will beat it the next round.  Then you do!  To celebrate let’s see if we can beat it one more time.  Okay an hour later, this is definitely my last game.  Hey look at that I got a high score!

My high score is 2,597 can you beat it?  Let me know.

Techlife was called into the principal’s office.  One of the Publisher’s of a paper that carries my syndicated column Techlife, called me to complain.  Now before you get all high-falutin’ as the superfans of  Techlife are often apt to do, and organize a FlashMob at the offices of the Publisher.  Let’s talk about the facts.

FACT: I have written Techlife since 2005.

FACT: I have written more than 230 columns to date.

FACT: I have had more than 5000 readers interact with the column.

FACT: I am stopped at least once a month for my good looks as the writer of a famous syndicated technology and life column.

FACT: We welcome opinions of all types, especially those that support the above fact.

“Not to shabby,” I can hear you thinking.  And of course you the readers have made this possible.  The phone call in question was a bit of a principle issue. (Notice how we used both versions of the word, who says we can’t turn a phrase.)  It seems that allegedly a reader or too contacted the Publisher thinking my column was more advertorial than witty, high brow, useful, well written, drivel that I intend it to be.  Let’s examine the recent evidence shall we, here are some recent columns in reverse order…

• Freecycle – Give, Get, Save – all about helping the world
• Baseball and Business: It’s a Numbers Game – how data, design and access to information help the user
• How To Create Online Tilt Shift Miniature Photos -  parallel between a photography technique and creative thinking
• Clark Griswold & The Perfect Vacation – improving the family vacation
• This Mother’s Day Tell the Truth – a new look to the e-card

Now I submit to you a jury of my loyal readers, biased in all ways they should be, who have lined their birdcages read the columns does it sound advertorial to you?  Sure I throw in a bit about my life, my company, my family like all good writers do.  It makes me seem authentic and smart, a thinly veiled ploy to connect with the reader.  And if one of you were to contact me for cup of a coffee to discuss your own business ideas, would I not pretend to listen?  So if a few of these advertorial accusers would like to step forward, we can comment back and forth as so many others do here at Techlife. We welcome all feedback.  Special thanks to our Publisher and our Editors on this one.  Did I do Dave Barry proud?

In speaking with a client, I was told I often remind them of Michael Bluth, Jason Bateman’s character on the show Arrested Development.  I had never seen an episode, but this client mentioned it was on Hulu.  So I proceeded to watch all of Arrested Development on Hulu, you might detect that a bit in this month’s column or else, I’ve made a huge mistake.

Hulu, a partnership between some of the major networks, has old and new movies and television shows that play in full screen on your computer.  Everything is on-demand, loading in a few seconds in HD.  It is well thought out and easy to use.  I don’t love the control factor, for example they recently cut out Season 2 and 3 of Arrested Development with no reason given, though message boards guess to sell DVDs.  I can already see the complaints by employers to my Publisher for introducing this time sucker.  And for that I know Dave Barry would be proud.