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
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 11 (Playseats Evolution Gaming Seat)
2007-12-11 16:49:00 Geeks love games and this Geek Gift Idea will help improve their gaming experience. The Playseats Evolution Gaming Seat is a chair built to enhance racing game titles. The chair has a double-stitched vinyl cover available in black or white, reinforced steel tubular construction that adds stability and eliminates excess wobble, a non-flammable seat material, ... More About: Ideas , Toys , Gift Ideas
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 10 (Star Wars Force FX Lightsabers)
2007-12-10 14:25:00 I obviously had to mention these sweet little beauties in a series of Geek Gift Ideas posts; the Star Wars Force FX Lightsabers. These are official reproductions of the lightsabers used in George Lucas’s Star Wars film series. Featuring realistic lighting and sound effects, these close combat weapons of the Jedi and Sith are absolutely ... More About: Gift Ideas
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 9 (Case Of Bawls)
2007-12-09 14:48:00 One of the geek’s best friends (especially programmer/hacker geeks) is caffeine. That usually comes in the form of a beverage and is most likely called Java or Joe or coffee. Non-coffee drinking geeks sometimes also go for the sodas, but alas these do not have the same kick as coffee… at least in my humble ... More About: Ideas , Toys , Gift Ideas , Gift , Geek
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 8 (iPod Touch)
2007-12-08 14:32:00 Now this isn’t late breaking news but with the iPod Touch you can get all of the cool, ground-breaking new features of the iPhone without all of the fuss and trouble of it being an actual phone. It has the gorgeous 3.5 inch vibrant touchscreen that lets you control everything with the tips of your ... More About: Ideas , Apple , Toys , Gift Ideas
Duracell Sweepstakes - Win $5,000
2007-12-07 17:04:00 Want to get your hands on all the hottest new gadgets? Enter the Duracell ® Recharge Your Holiday Shopping Sweep stakes for a chance to upgrade your collection: 1 Grand Prize - $5,000 10 First Prizes - $1,000 100 Second Prizes - $100 500 Third Prizes - A Duracell ® Battery Charger More About: Stakes
Friday Song Of The Day - Lost In Love
2007-12-07 15:00:00 Air Supply is a soft rock duo consisting of English guitarist/vocalist Graham Russell and Australian lead vocalist Russell Hitchcock. The band formed in 1975 having met during a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar. This is one of my favorites among their many hits. Lost In Love by Air Supply: I realize the best part of love is ... More About: Song , Friday
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 7 (USB Rechargeable Batteries)
2007-12-07 14:30:00 With the advent of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) manufacturers have been creating everything but the kitchen sink that has the capability of plugging into a USB port. When I saw this one though, I just had to include it in my Geek Gift Ideas series. Rechargeable batteries? Useful… cool. Rechargeable batteries that get their ... More About: Toys , Gift Ideas , Batteries
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 6 (Palmsize R/C Helicopter)
2007-12-06 16:33:00 I can remember as a small boy going to an abandoned field with my dad and watching a bunch of old guys flying radio controlled airplanes. I was absolutely enthralled. There was a helicopter I can remember that was very interesting and even a plane that was made from an old push lawn mower! There ... More About: Ideas , Toys , Gift Ideas , Gift , Geek
Site Malfunction - Me!
2007-12-05 18:02:00 I just love it when I’ve worked for the past fifteen minutes on a post, I hit the Publish button and… crap! I get a WordPress error explaining that it cannot reach my database. That’s just brilliant. I have a hosted web service through 1 and 1 and they are usually very good about keeping ... More About: Site
Geek Gift Ideas - Dec 5 (IDE Ribbon Cable Belt)
2007-12-05 17:32:00 I saw this and absolutely had to include it in my Geek Gift Ideas post series. This is the IDE Belt … that’s right! It’s a belt; you know the kind of thing that helps to hold up your britches. Only it is made of a silver IDE Ribbon Cable. Now, I know what you are ... More About: Toys , Gift Ideas
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
More articles from this author: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 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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