How to create notification icon badge on Android apps (like iPhone)

Question

I am very new to programming and would like to know what is the best way to go about creating a notification icon badge similar to the ones on the iPhone apps. This would be

Answer 1

This is actually an answer from Mark Murphy:

For most phones, you use the number field of the Notification object. See here: http://github.com/commonsguy/cw-android/tree/master/Notifications/Notify1/

Now, there are a few phones by one major device manufacturer that have a bug, whereby the number field is ignored. I am working on getting them to fix it. So you can't absolutely rely on that red bubble being there, though it will be on most phones.