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.

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.

Data, a collection of organized numbers and labels, comes in many shapes and sizes.  Ever made a gut decision only to regret it later?  Well, note to self, your gut is not located anywhere near your decision making center.   And decisions made on data are educated and analytical.  Wait a sec, I thought this was Techlife?

Having accurate information, helps make informed decisions.  I could talk about how your business would be wise to look at the numbers, but we’ll instead use baseball.  Let’s face it, it’s a lot of fun to use a sport that has heaps of data.  Sean Forman over at Baseball-Reference.com has compiled the statistics universe of baseball.  He has organized baseball stats for teams, players, eras, and more.

Will having better data help you in Yeti Baseball? Not likely.  Will it help you in betting on baseball? Quite possibly.  Alright, skip the explanation already, let’s get to it, you’re losing me.

Flamethrowers

As of June 30, 2009, pitching phenom Tim Lincecum of the San Franciso Giants had pitched in 74 career games.  He had 15 games with at least 10 strikeouts, placing him 6th all time. Other fireballers who started hot careers ahead of Lincecum were Dwight Gooden, Herb Score, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and Hideo Nomo who ranged from 27 games to 16 games respectively with 10 plus punch outs.

Baseball-Reference.com Blog and Stat of the Day writer Andy Kamholz, also ran the data on flamethrowers in their first 74 career games with at least 8 strikeouts, and Linceum is number 1 with 39.   Followed again by Gooden, Wood, Score, Prior and Nomo who ranged from 38-33.

Homeruns

Babe Ruth hit a lot of homeruns; 714 to be exact.  Baseball-Reference.com has a log of every homerun he ever hit.  But they provide even more data about each homerun.  They document play by play:

• HRs in order they were hit
• What number HR it was of the season it was hit
• What number HR it was in the game
• Date
• Matchup (teams)
• Pitcher
• Inning it was hit
• RBI from that HR

and comprehensive data of Number of HRs:

• Against by Opponent
• Against Left/Right Handed Pitchers
• Against Pitcher (by name and count)
• By Ballpark
• Inside the Park

Award Winning

Baseball likes awards.  From Cy Young for pitching, MVPs, Triple Crowns, Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers to managers and rookies of the year, most of these are decided by numbers.  Which lead players to the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, where Baseball’s Hall of Fame stands as the ultimate achievement based on statistics.  Baseball-Reference.com has broken down the awards winners by stats, years, teams, and streaks.  Slicing data to make the game more enjoyable and understandable.

Final Thought

A simple design, easy access to information and tools for the casual to the stat freak allow Baseball-Reference.com to shine in data display.  As you imagine how a data rich environment with insight and analysis would help your company or organization, keep in mind this site took 10 years to get to the point you see today.  Working with a professional can help you understand your data, interpret it and come out hitting  homeruns.  Stop making calls from your gut, save that for peanuts and cracker jacks.

When we sit down with clients, they often want a new perspective on their company.  All to often the insulated internal views they hold are guarded and warped with years of rose colored glasses.  Often we are asked, “What really is the 10,000 foot view that so many consulting firms speak of?”  Our answer, “Up high on a mountain, you don’t get a great view of someone’s business or their industry, you just get light headed with a lack of oxygen.”

A true perspective shift, is seeing the same image with the ability to blur some parts while finely sharpening other parts of an image.  In consulting, we perform a perspective shift exercise for clients who are looking to improve their business, design and brand,  or their process.  Techlife can help you start to think about why the same image can be seen differently thanks to a lesson in tilt shift photography.

True tilt shift photography refers to the special type of lens that helps take images with a different focal plane or shallow depth of field, the result in some cases is what looks like a miniature scene from a model.  Techlife has covered a London artist who creates miniature art and uses tilt shift perspective to blend the art to the real world.  Thanks to two websites you can take your own photos and quickly create miniature scenes of your favorite shots.

Trolley in Memphis - Tilt Shift Image by Tilt Shift Generator

How to Create a Tilt Shift Miniature Photograph using a Website

1. Shoot a good photo.  The best photos are scenes with most items all at  about the same distance.  Also shot of a landscape or cityscape works better than your family portrait.

2. Upload your photo.  Techlife used two different websites to showcase tilt shift photography, each is a bit different.  Try Tilt Shift Maker and Tilt Shift Generator.

3. Tweak your photo. Each site has various settings that allow you to do different things with your photo.

4. Download your new photo. After correcting the sample to your heart’s content, download the final image for your collection.

Trolley in Memphis - Tilt Shift Image by Tilt Shift Maker

Final Review: Tilt Shift Maker is the easier of the two.  It has less options to tweak and a single “band” of focus good for landscape shots.  It does not have a live preview.  Tilt Shift Generator is more advanced and has a nice real time updating preview option.  It offers many more options to tweak your Tilt Shift photo.  They were both good but the true most important thing, start with a  good photo.  We used 4 photos on each site before deciding on this photo for our article.

If you are interested in seeing how a photographic technique could be applied to help you see your company or organization in new ways, send an email to techlife [at] dkworldwide.com.   Sometimes having another set of eyes look through the lens can help focus your message and increase productivity.

Trolley in Memphis Original

Before Clark Griswold loaded the car, he planned his Family Vacation using a computer.  I am sure all Techlife readers have used their computers to plan trips and book accommodations for years now.  

For our reader’s travel plans Techlife has covered sites like Travelistic, Farecast, Google’s MyMaps and RovAir which all aid the traveller.  Today there are countless websites devoted to planning a trip by air, land and sea along with various hotel accommodations.  But there is another way…vacation rentals. 

A Techlife reader shares this story with us…

We were heading from Oakland to Chicago for a week of fun this spring.  Our family has two small children and a week cooped up in the hotel would have been unbearable.  So we hopped on the computer and found salvation.

If you are looking for a bit more local flavor and unique roof over your head, combined with a chance to get a great deal in a down economy vacation rentals are a great option.   So this is just another Craigslist article, right?  C’mon give Techlife a little credit.  Check out VRBO.com, which stands for Vacation Rentals by Owner, to find over 120,000 properties all over the planet.  

In addition to a more local experience, a VRBO is perfect for the travelling family, as the typical listings are condos or  homes instead of just a hotel room.  This gives you bedrooms, a common area, and often a kitchen for equal or even less money than a single room.  For the family with small children through the extended family or friends travelling together, you get the privacy of your own room but the fun of hanging out at night and in the morning.

As one friend of Techlife is fond of saying, “vacations with little children aren’t vacations but just changes of location.”  Searching the VRBO site, has listings that include all sorts of kid friendly amenities, including homes with pools, swing sets, beaches, dvd players, and a few with use of the property’s boat!

Due to the economy we put ourselves on a tight budget, after searching around VRBO.com we realized our budget was not enough money, but we couldn’t spend anymore.  So we waited, and waited, and waited some more.  Then just a week before our trip, we put our plan into motion.

VRBO does have some drawbacks, each listing is maintained by the property owner so the occupancy calendar is not always up to date.  That alone gave me pause about some of these owners in maintaining their property.  In addition, unlike a normal travel site the search tools were a bit weaker.  I was looking to travel over the Fourth of July weekend and had to visit each property, and then click a second time to the occupancy calendar.  I would have preferred to only be shown properties that fit my criteria from the start, including date.

Price also is weak search criteria.  The site has to sell itself to the property owner and the owners clearly prefer a week rental or longer.  Some owners see the value in offering just a weekend or single night price, but again a bit of manual search is required.

There are some other things a traveller has to get used  to, dealing with countless different owners.  You can easily call or email each owner though from VRBO’s easy to use interface to book or ask a question.  The best feature of VRBO is consistency, you get used to the way the listings are laid out, photos here, description here, bullet points here, price here and can quickly assess properties.

At that late date, I sent out emails to all the best properties on the site in the Wrigleyville area of Chicago where we wanted to stay.  We explained we had this much to spend, and understood they were asking more.  We quickly got a few replies from aggressive owners who realized some rent is better than no rent.  We also lucked out, no Cubs games that week so the owners were going to be fighting for us.  What we got was….

Techlife has been using this site for some time and enjoys the adventure of finding the perfect place and that moment where you open the door and hope it really is perfect.  Of course some properties have guestbooks with comments which really helps.  Remember if your vacation rental ends up like a Griswold vacation you will always have the memories and a killer script.

An amazing place with hardwood floors, cherry cabinets, granite counter tops, stainless appliances and we actually entertained at our place one night while our kids slept.  It was truly a great vacation and the vacation rental was the best.

I love how we don't even need to say out loud that I'm your favorite child.

Endearing.  Thoughtful.  Loving.  

These are all things that Someecards decided would NOT make the cut this Mother’s Day.  

Snark.  Attitude.  Dirty.

Ahhh…more like it, you say? This Mother’s Day take the five minutes to send your mom a card using Someecards.  She is sure to wonder about her parenting ability. Good Job!  While you are at it, send a few more e-cards to those Mother’s in your life who deserve a bit of hardcore mommy praise.  Keep in mind Someecards is definitely for the over 18 mommy crowd.  At this point you probably saying to yourself, “do I really need to read the rest of this joke of a Techlife?”  

Let’s answer that, with yes — everyone who has ever gotten an e-card from you will thank you for reading this column.  First a bit of history.

I think of you every time I browse my cell phone on the toilet.

This is Spinal Tap popularized a new comedy genre to modern audiences, the mockumentary.  The recipe is as follows, take a serious subject, with actors who deliver deadpan accounts of their fictious life,  acting as real people. Add pinch of crazy, a dash of ridiculous and there you have it a documentary that is all fun.  In motion pictures we have seen the same group bring us classics such as Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show.  Much of the dialog, like real life is unscripted.

Other television shows such as The Office and The Colbert Report have successfully brought this brand of comedy to the small screen.  Finally The Onion has been entertaining us for years in print and lately in video format as well.

So as Techlife often encourages, business ideas that spark unique creative bursts often come from turning the establishment on its head.  Sure we have all seen greeting cards at the store that are a bit risque, but probably you have never seen so many cards with black and white older style line art, that is taken so far out of context with the surrounding words.  What are we saying?  A few examples will help educate you.  Don’t say we didn’t warn you, and yes we chose the cleanest ones.

I'm glad we share a sense of humor and an understanding that I'm slightly funnier.

Check your political correctness at the door because while Someecards.com has the normal categories of greeting cards or ecards, such as Birthday, Anniversary, and of course Mother’s Day, the cards themselves are anything but normal.

You would have loved the gift I didn't bother getting you.

Like the other greeting card sites Someecards has added some, uh, unusual categories such as Take your Kid to Work cards, Presidential/Electoral cards and of course the obliagatory Steroid Abuse cards.

Like most good businesses these days, Someecards recognized that once in a great while even “you” get a stroke of comedic genius combined with timely current events, so they have a Make Your Own card section and there are some pretty funny people who use the site.

Oh, yeah did we mention the whole site is free.  Yeah we know you.  Send your best cards to techlife [at] dkworldwide [dot] com.

Dear Techlife,

I don’t have a lot of money, but my old computer is dying on me.  I think there is something wrong with the power supply or the fan thingy.  Either way, I am going to replace this 5 year old beast with a new one.  Tell me how to buy a computer with today’s choices, and I will.  I am drowning in too much information.

To many computer choices and no time,

Overwhelmed

Dear Overwhelmed,

As a writer for Techlife and the owner of an internet marketing and hosting company we are actually asked this question a few times a week.  We have got “How to buy a new computer” down to the following three simple questions, cause hey, we like things simple.

Of course we need a quick paragraph of assumptions.  You are replacing an existing machine, pretty much a given these days.  You have data you don’t want to lose. “Duh!” You would like something that will last, so you don’t have to buy again in 1 or 2 years.  Yes, the word genius is tossed around quite often, feel free to to use it again.  You are going to at a minimum surf the net and send email.    “Of course I am.  Enough of the small talk, let’s skip to the questions already, you had me at easy.” 

Top 5 Laptops on Amazon – $675 – $1600, 13.3 – 16 inch screen size, 2 – 3 GB RAM standard and DVD Drives

Question 1 – What can you bench press?

Answer – “Are you kidding?  This is your first question?”  Give me a chance, I have a reason for this.  These days there are a few types of “new” computers for you to consider.  The standard desktop, a laptop or a netbook.  “Yeah I know this already, the desktop is the cheapest, the laptop is the lightest and – ”  Not so fast there professor, things have changed.  Netbooks are even smaller laptops, and are often both the cheapest and the lightest.  Many also have longer battery life than a regular laptop.  “So what’s the downside, they sound perfect?”  Well these machines are normally small which means, a smaller keyboard and a smaller screen and most don’t include a DVD player/recorder.  We typically tell people to visit an electronics store or even your local Target and Walmart to see these machines first hand.  They are also sometimes a bit less powerful than a laptop or desktop, which is probably ok if you are doing the basics; email, web surfing, paying a few bills.

Top 5 Netbooks on Amazon – $319 – $389, 8.9 – 10.1 inch screen size, 1 GB RAM standard, some with 9.5 hour batteries

Question 2 – What’s the demo?

Answer – “The demo?”  Sorry, in marketing speak the demographic.  Who is using this machine?  Business, Family with little kids, a young woman on her way to college? What will they do on the machine?  If you are a single business user who will be the only person on the machine, what do you use it for?  Presentations?  Invoicing? A family might have a dad into photography and who pays some bills, a mom who shops for the kids clothes and researches and plans her garden, a son who wants to play video games and a daughter who wants to use voice and video chat.  “What about homework?”  I did say “want” not “need.”  Finally a college student can hopefully get by on a single machine for the life of school, which means staying in touch with home, writing papers, research, and maybe some 3D models of chemicals, people, art, or fashion depending on her major.  

Surprisingly the business user might be able to get by with a low powered netbook, if they have a lot of travel and a full size monitor, keyboard and mouse in their office.  The active family needs a bit larger hard drive with all the users and their various needs.  The college student has to consider a combination of power, speed and mobility as well as what their prospective career calls “standard.”

Question 3 – Lottery or  Stimulus?

Answer – For the high percentage of lottery winners who read Techlife we want you to know the price of a computer is just as important to those looking for a little economic stimulus love. When it comes to price each of the three types have their high and low end.  I always recommend looking at the maximum amount of RAM your machine can accept, it rarely comes with all that can be put on board.  Buying extra RAM is one of the best ways to ensure a speedy machine.  If you are looking to skimp, you can always opt for a smaller hard drive and use an external drive to store archives, which has another benefit of being a bit more secure.  

Final thoughts:  We have been suggesting people get laptops these days.  They are less power hungry then a desktop which means a slightly lower cost of ownership.  They have their own battery backup in case of a power failure while you are working on that masterpiece.  With your keyboard, monitor and mouse can act very much like a desktop and take up less space in the process.  Let us know what you think the best machine and why.

The economy’s situation is certainly gloom to some.  Just today I got a death rattle email from a local business.  As the owner of a few businesses in my career, the end of one has always brought the feeling of the phoenix, rising from the ashes.  I am usually inspired to ride the next boom.  Of course before you reach the final hours, there are many things you can do to change the situation and turn it around.

Probably the scariest thing we see with clients is the failure to recognize change opportunities in their own business.  The old axiom, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it is just that, old and with a little deep thought, self-perpetuating.  Many people look for a silver bullet, but the truth is, small changes to a process or a marketing tweak often result in incremental improvements and end up much more cost effective.

It is often hardest to see change from the inside.  When we work with clients we help to implement a change plan to identify opportunties and then act on them.  As you begin to consider your changes and consider the gloom if you just keep on keeping on.  We bring you four excellent reviews of the past, to learn from.

Memorable Companies That Have Vanished – A visual slide show of 25 companies who were once well known and didn’t adapt.  The blurbs are well written such as:

It’s hard to believe these days, but at one time Burger Chef was the number two fast-food burger chain in the U.S., second only to McDonald’s.

Retail Stores Closing Their Doors – From some stores to all stores, retail is cut-throat.  Be aggressive or close your doors.

Fastest Dying Industries – Considering taking that early severance and starting up a new venture, stay away from these areas unless you are a maverick. 

Top 25 Things We Wish Would Make a Comeback – Take heed business owners, this list is the list of tweaks, change and boldy stepping away from “safe.”  It’s the list your mother warned you about, and the list Techlife readers love. 

Our recent article Fail = Success, was just that.  We have had quite a few business owners ask about turning their business on its head.  Keep exploring, forget the voice of gloom and be like Apple’s founder Steve Jobs when releasing a new product, make your company go BOOM!

Do clients want to fail?  Do you want to fail?  How bad is failure in today’s world?  

When we sit with clients we often share stories of success.  How a solution we implemented for a client led to an increase in sales or in another case our brainstorm led to a new product.  By using our broad base of design, technology, marketing and experience we provide clients valuable lessons in success.  You might say we traffic in success and our clients certainly appreciate it.

Of course there are some people in business and in life who don’t need or want any advice.  These true pioneers of life forge ahead and lead the way for the rest of us.  How does this business plan sound:

We plan on showcasing how badly people FAIL in life.  We expect our website visitors to create and submit all our content.  We expect people will come in droves.

That is exactly what happened for Fail Blog.  This website has dedicated itself to showcasing failure.  With labels applied to photos and video of “FAIL”, “EPIC FAIL”, “MASSIVE FAIL” and more this site has made a business out of celebrating small and large failures.  The typical reaction is more than just a smirk sometimes it is a true LOL.

In our daily lives we don’t often encourage failure, so to see a site like this succeed is a cosmic lesson in finding lemons and making lemonade.  The site’s vibrant community provides even more enjoyment with comments and jokes about each post.  

To ensure the site only showcase’s the best FAIL on the homepage, they have a voting area where all sorts of submissions can be graded on failure or success, or is that success or failure.  I am so confused!

As we continue to meet with business owners we certainly will share a new story with them, FAIL can be success too!

What’s your best failure story?  Share it with us in the comments.

All images courtesy of failblog.org.

The Dojo's Cubed Addict - Multiplayer Real Time game for Android, Mac, PC and Linux.

As we meet with client’s the hardest thing for them to wrap their arms around is that on the web, your business is instantly global.  “Awesome, bring it on.”  “Yeah, so, no big deal.”  These are some of the common answers we hear from client’s.  It is then we sit them down and using their enthusiasm or lack thereof, we coach them on doing business in a global economy.  It’s not always easy with i18n (shorthand for internationalization) and l10n (shorthand for localization) and social networking and web 2.0 and e-commerce.

Now imagine adding mobile customers to the mix.  That is exactly the challenge David Kainer of The Dojo experienced.  Provide his customers a gaming platform globally that easily works for all mobile devices and Linux, Mac and Windows computers (<=computer download link, start playing today) based customers.  He also added in multi-player real-time , and to top it all off…it is all FREE.

Techlife sat down with David, who from his Sydney office, works with the London office to learn about The Dojo.  How?  Why? How hard?  It’s all in there, and we even cover why he chose Google’s Android first over Apple’s iPhone. 

Techlife: What is The Dojo?

David Kainer: The Dojo is a global platform for uniting game players in interactive gaming, irrespective of platform. It’s aim is to provide great multi-player experiences on mobile and online and really begin to blur the boundaries between the two. Best of all – it’s free.

T: How did you come with the idea for The Dojo?  Was it based on something?

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New Release.  New Version.  Sequel.  The second time around audiences know what to expect and the build up is extremely exciting.  This is why we tell clients to re-invent themselves.  It is exciting for the client, their employees and their customers.  Everyone likes the makeover.

We had three exciting stories recently in Techlife that all are forms of version 2.0.  All of them are exciting and unique.

First we have a follow-up to the Techlife Gift Guide with version 2.0 of the Give 1 Get 1 program from the folks at OLPC that we wrote about last year.  You can get involved and make the donation of a lifetime, by giving the metaphorical fishing pole..

Next we have two companies who have released new versions of very popular free flash games.  XGen Studios released the new Stick Arena Ballistick and The Casual Collective released a new site with a whole bunch of upgrades and new games. We pit them head to head. (Hint we are all winners.)

Finally, we were emailed from a reader the viral video that was part of a presidential campaign starring “you” the voter.  It was a unique bit of marketing with certain Web 2.0 twist.  And while the election is over this bit of marketing is something we are sure to see more of as time goes on.

Do you have re-make, re-do, re-invention or re-ally good idea?  Share it with us.

Time for that company makeover?  No idea where to start? We can help your company or organization today so why wait? Hit me via email at: techlife [ at ] dkworldwide [dot] com. Do you subscribe to the RSS feed for Techlife? Visit the TechLife weblog where all you need to do is point and click.

(part of the syndicated print column’s writing process exposed to online readers)

Is your business ready for version 2.0? New look? New ideas? New plan? Need help? Ask an expert. I dream up solutions for companies. Let me help you. As a marketing and technology proven venture strategist I want to meet businesses and organizations that are looking for a way to break out, all it takes is an invitation. Contact me, it’s easy: techlife [at] dkworldwide [dot] com.

(part of the syndicated print column’s writing process exposed to online readers)

Casual gaming is enjoyed by readers of Techlife, we have discussed many free flash games in the past, today we present a face-off.

XGen Studio’s new release of Stick Arena Ballistick has been long awaited by the readers of Techlife.  How long?  We measure the wait in years and comments.  We have had nearly 2500 comments regarding the love for this new title.

The Casual Collective also re-launched their top hit Desktop Tower Defense 1.9 as well as a slew of new games including: Buggle Stars, Farragomate and Minons.  While not nearly as popular comment wise, there have been nearly 200 comments about the various games they offer.

Here’s the Techlife Take…

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