franzone.com - thoughts of a web geek franzone.com - thoughts of a web geek I'm a work from home web geek, a father of three, a husband, a World of Warcraft nerd, a martial arts practitioner, a musician and many other things. Product reviews, technical articles, April Fools posts, life stories, oh... and we have comics! Articles
Save $5 Off $30 Or More At ThinkGeek.com
2007-12-04 22:23:00 Hello all! I’ve been posting quite a few links to one my favorite online stores in the entire web-o-sphere lately… ThinkGeek .com. So when I ran across this coupon code I figured I’d share it with you. Readers of GeekDad over at Wired Blogs are being given the opportunity to save $5 off of an order ... More About: Toys , Save , Thinkgeek
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 4
2007-12-04 14:00:00 What says geek like a robot? And ThinkGeek .com has managed to get their hands on a stock of really cool robots from Tomy in Japan. i-SOBOT is the “world’s smallest fully articulated robot.” With 17 servo motors and amazing lifelike movement the i-SOBOT is more like a mini version of some futuristic robotic race destined ... More About: Ideas , Toys , Gift Ideas , Gift
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 3
2007-12-03 14:00:00 My grandpa always said that anything could be fixed with duct tape and super glue… and he practiced what he preached. As it turns out duct tape is useful for more than just fixing things; you can actually make stuff with it! ThinkGeek .com is offering a Duct Tape Wallet from Ducti in either a bi-fold ... More About: Ideas , Toys , Gift Ideas , Gift
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 2
2007-12-02 14:00:00 So I don’t know how you feel, but sometimes I really miss those big bulky telephone handsets. Remember the old Motorola Star Tecs and those humongous square brick phones that important people used to carry around? The phones these days, even the ones for your home, are all small and sleek and stylish. I’ve ... More About: Ideas , Toys , Gift Ideas , Gift , Geek
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 1
2007-12-01 14:00:00 What better way to treat the geek in your life this Christmas than a T-Shirt that has a built-in WiFi signal strength indicator? For all of you non-technical folks WiFi is a wireless local area network that allows you connect… well, without wires… to the internet. Of course it could just connect you to ... More About: Ideas , Toys , Gift Ideas , Gift , Geek
Site Error: DomainsBot.com
2007-11-30 21:24:00 I was searching for some new domain names today and I got this handy-dandy error from DomainsBot.com. Looks like the ole Microsoft .NET Framework is giving them some problems. BTW - Usually that site is an excellent place to brainstorm and look for domain names. Check it out… maybe later after they’ve fixed the ... More About: Site , Error , Mains
Friday Song Of The Day - Believe It Or Not
2007-11-30 16:46:00 Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a super-hero? Well Ralph Hinkley, a school teacher, finds this out in the comedy series Greatest American Hero. The thing I remember most about this series though is the theme song being played while he flies into a crash landing through a wall. Great ... More About: Song , Friday
Software Engineering Tips For Startups
2007-11-30 16:06:00 Alex Iskold over at AdaptiveBlue.com wrote a very good article for any startup companies wanting to get their feet wet in the software market. Very well written and user-friendly guide titled… well it’s the same as I titled this post. Software Engineering Tips For Startups (the real article) More About: Erin
Funny Spam Comment
2007-11-30 15:18:00 I just received a spam comment this morning that I thought was kinda funny so I thought I’d share it. The Good lad and author! I much like site! Thanks much! What!? Anyway, I guess I’m an author and a lad today. lol More About: Funny , Spam , Comment
PC Upgrade Woes
2007-11-26 16:42:00 This web comic is brought to you by xkcd.com and Randall Munroe (A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language).
William Shatner Plays World of Warcraft
2007-11-21 12:53:00 Another great video by Blizzard Entertainment. William Shatner endorses the World of Warcraft game by telling how awesome a Shaman he is. More About: Video , Humor
Mr. T Plays World of Warcraft
2007-11-21 12:49:00 Check out the latest hilarious video put out by Blizzard Entertainment where Mr. T tells about being a Night Elf Mohawk. What? There’s no mohawk class? Well there should be! More About: Video , Humor , World , Warcraft , Plays
Work On Your Geek Cred - Geekipedia
2007-11-21 03:35:00 Need to know what in the heck AJAX is? Wondering what all the talk is about DRM free music? Sometimes people “in the know” can drop some pretty intimidating buzz words, but there is no need for you to feel inferior. Wired Magazine has compiled a Geek ipedia that covers a lot of the people, ... More About: Work
Win A $3000 Shopping Spree From Best Buy
2007-11-20 14:38:00 Casio and Best Buy are sponsoring the Show Us Your Digs! video sweepstakes where you could stand to win a $3000 gift card and more. To enter you need to create a video that is two minutes or less and show off your crib’s technology. There are four different categories that you can enter in: Dream Crib: The crib that everyone would love to have. You use the latest in technology and show it off with pride. Collectors Crib: Are you the envy of all your friends? Show us your collection of videos, CDs or video games. Budget Crib: You know your crib is awesome…even if you are on a budget. Show us how you make use of technology on a tight budget. High-Tech Crib: Filled with high-tech gadgets ranging from plasma televisions to sound systems, your crib is overloaded with technology. After creating your video just go to www.youtube.com/casiousa and upload to enter. Are there any other prizes you could win? Of course! Here is a listing: FOUR (4) GRAND PRIZES (one (1) Grand Pr... More About: Shopping , Spree
Black Friday Sales
2007-11-20 07:11:00 Are you ready for the mad Black Friday Sales rush to get great bargains and get ahead on your Christmas shopping? Are you looking for some really cheap tech items (electronics, computers, software, etc)? Well, a friend of mine just emailed me a link to this online Google Spreadsheet containing a very nice listing of some of the sales that are already listed including the store name, the item, the sale price and whether or not it is a mail-in rebate item. Click here to see the Black Friday Sales Spreadsheet. You may also want to check out The Official Black Friday 2007 website. They have a lot of listings as well.
Arbitrary Command-Line Arguments In Bash
2007-11-19 16:58:00 Have you ever wanted to be able to process an arbitrary number of command-line arguments in your Bash scripts? Well, fear not! It is actually quite easy. All you need is one of the special built-in variables of the Bash shell. The “$@” variable gives you the parameters passed on without any expansion and seen as separate words. This means you can iterate through them without much fuss. #!/bin/bash if [ -z "$1" ]; then echo -e " Usage: `basename $0` arg 1 [arg 2] [etc.]..." exit 1 fi echo "Found $# Command -Line Arguments" idx=1 for arg in "$@" do echo "Arg[$idx] = ${arg}" let "idx += 1" done exit 0 The first part of this script uses the “-z” test to see if the first positional command-line argument is null. If it is then the script simply outputs a usage statement and exits with a non-zero return value. Otherwise the script goes into a for loop which simply outputs the value of each command-line argument in turn. Notice I also used the “$#...
Friday Song Of The Day - Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
2007-11-09 18:12:00 Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David was made famous by B.J. Thomas in his performance of it for the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The song was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1970. Raindrops keep falling on my head Just like the guy whose ... More About: Music , Song , Friday , Raindrops
Will The Google Phone Overtake The iPhone?
2007-11-06 16:06:00 The release of Apple ’s iPhone has made tremendous waves in the cellphone industry. However, the honeymoon is over and the iPhone has been “cracked” in favor or more user customization and third party applications. Apple has announced an SDK (software developer kit) to be release for the iPhone coming in February 2008, but by then ... More About: News , Google , Linux
franzone.com Has A New Theme!
2007-11-02 05:24:00 I hope I haven’t shocked anyone, but this is still the home of Jonathan Franzone and my various technical ramblings. I have been working on a new theme for the site… from scratch. I have tweaked WordPress themes before and thought that there was really nothing to it. This was my first full-on theme though ... More About: Blogging , Theme
Pumpkin Carving Video Madness
2007-10-31 14:14:00 It’s that pumpkin time of year again and you should already see the carved pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns scattering the country. I just came across this Squid Lens, Pumpkin Carving Video Showcase. There are videos of some amazing carved pumpkins such as this one (click through to the site if you cannot see the video): There are ... More About: Madness
Google Context Ads Is Off Its Rocker
2007-10-30 15:49:00 I just posted an article (actually a link to another article) about Microsoft, Yahoo and Google in the online advertising arena. No surprises there; you can see it directly below. After publishing though I looked down at the AdSense block that follows each of my postings and… what!? Seriously, “Anti Monkey Butt Powder“? What the heck ... More About: Blogging , Rocker , Context
Microsoft Must Kill Google Before It Is Too Late
2007-10-30 15:42:00 Every once in a while I like to post links to one of my favorite financial sites, The Motley Fool. This usually because they are covering some aspects of one of the big tech companies. In this case Rick Aristotle Munarriz has written a very good analysis of the financial states of generating revenue from ... More About: News , Google , Microsoft , Late , Kill
Bash Script To Backup Your Website
2007-10-30 15:00:00 I thought I’d share another one of my personal scripts. This one is a script that I use to backup this website including files and the MySQL database. It is very simple and straightforward so I won’t bother with long explanations. If you have any questions about it please feel free to comment. On tip ... More About: Website , Tutorials , Backup , Operating Systems , Script
Who Upgrades Their WordPress Blog On Monday Morning?
2007-10-29 15:48:00 I do! I do! This is a testament to a) my stupidity and b) the simplicity of the WordPress installation/upgrade process. I would never, ever condone performing an upgrade on your website in the middle of Monday morning. Why? Well, that is usually one of the peak times of usage for most websites (unless they ... More About: Wordpress , Blogging , Blog , Morning , Upgrades
Still Time To Win a FREE iMac
2007-10-29 14:53:00 I wrote a little while back about a guy named Mike (Stay At Home Dad, Geek Style) who is running the Stay At Home Dad iMac Give-Away. Up for grabs is a brand new, unopened 20″ Apple iMac. It has a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1 GB of memory, a 250 GB ... More About: Toys , Time , Giveaways , Free
Passing Parameters By Ref In C#? WHAT?
2007-10-26 19:00:00 I am not a huge .NET fan, but I am mature enough to overcome my personal likes and dislikes in a professional setting and use whatever is needed. I recently ran into a situation programming in C# that I needed to create a method that took it’s parameters by reference. Why would you want to ... More About: Passi , Passing
Friday Song Of The Day - King Tut
2007-10-26 16:13:00 Don’t you just love it when comedians make music? King Tut is a hilarious song done by Steve Martin for SNL (Saturday Night Live). My favorite line? … He’s my favorite honky. There is also an embedded video below the lyrics for your viewing pleasure. Click through to the site if you cannot see ... More About: Song , Friday , King Tut
Extreme Surfing - Tidal Waves
2007-10-26 02:40:00 I’ve been skydiving on multiple occasions. Some would say that takes some… well, guts. But surfing on a wave this huge? WHAT! You have got to be kidding me. (Click through to the site if you cannot see the video) I extracted this video from an article titled The 10 Craziest Competitive Sports (You Never Heard ... More About: Video , Surfing , Extreme , Waves , Trem
Want A FREE Subscription to Oracle Magazine?
2007-10-25 23:07:00 Are you at all interested in Oracle products? Would like to find out more about them? Would you like tips, tutorials, sample code and a ton of valuable Oracle-related information? Why not head over and grab yourself a FREE subscription to Oracle Magazine . Of course they reserve to right to refuse free subscriptions based on ... More About: Technology , Free , Subs
Feel The Pain! Simulated Bullet Hits In FPS Games Coming
More articles from this author:2007-10-25 22:46:00 According to PC World Magazine, TN Games , makers of “physical experience hardware,” will release a PC vest accessory on November 21 that simulates the feeling of being hit by real bullets when playing first-person shooter games. The 3rd Space FPS Vest features eight embedded contact points that are said to simulate the direction and force ... More About: Technology , Toys , Pain , Bullet 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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