Owner: franzone.com - thoughts of a web geek URL:http://www.franzone.com Join Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:56:48 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: 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, live stories, oh... and we have comics! Site statistics:Click here
Web Developers Coming To A Desktop Near You 2007-06-15 00:27:16 For the first part of my career I fought against being pigeonholed as a web programmer or web developer. Why? I wanted to build serious applications.. real applications that ran on the desktop and consumed large amounts of resources. Of course, eventually I gave up fighting that battle and migrated towards the web application. That turned out to be a very challenging area which was good enough for me. On my own free time I played with various GUI programming techniques and finally in the past several years I’ve had the opportunity to work on some commercial desktop applications and have actually been exposed to a wide variety of different platforms. What’s my point?
Segregation Is Bad!
My point is that there was once a difference between web developers and desktop developers. Not anymore! That’s right. You heard me. Adobe, the company that started out with a portable document format (the PDF) has grown to be one of the largest web technology innovators during this Web Read more:Developers
, Desktop
GuerrillaMail Temporary Email Service 2007-06-14 04:00:19 Want to sign up for some online service, but don’t want the spam? Most online sign up processes these days have the email confirmation step which requires that you actually have access to the email address that you provide to the service. Well here is a nice, quick and simple solution!
GuerillaMail offers a FREE service that gives you a temporary email to use for 15 minutes. It is extremely easy to use too! Just go to the GuerillaMail page and click on the Get TemporaryEmail
link. The page will refresh with a text input box that has your new email address ready to go. There is a reload link in the middle of the page that you click on to check for new incoming messages. A timer at the bottom of the page tells you how long you have left of your 15 minutes. Not enough time? Don’t worry, you can actually request more time with your free email address.
When new mail arrives you will see it listed in the middle of the page. Just click on the individual messages for a more detail Read more:Service
Tech Bundle - June 13, 2007 2007-06-13 15:05:15 Apple To Sell iTunes Through Bebo
In an aggressive move to target the youth demographic Apple will utilize Bebo’s music-focused social network to sell iTunes songs directly to users and site visitors. This will initially roll out as an option in the UK and Ireland.
Read More…
Who Needs College? The Triumph of Young Web Founders
From Tom and his 100+ million friends on MySpace to Kristopher Tate broadcasting daily videos to the Zooomr faithful during the Mark III launch crisis, a side effect of social media has been the rise of the iconic founder.
Read More…
iTunes Account Required For iPhone Setup
It appears that in the latest round of information released on the eagerly anticipated iPhone from Apple it details that users will be required to have an iTunes account to setup up your iPhone. Hmmm. Does this mean I won’t be able to sync up any of my non-iTunes music to my new phone?
Read more…
World Record: 25.6 Terabits Per Second
Combined research teams f Read more:Bundle
Apple Puts OS X Leopard On ZFS 2007-06-13 00:11:21 Rumors, rumors everywhere and now it’s finally out in the wild. During a presentation last week in Washington, Sun Microsystems (Public, NASDAQ:SUNW) CEO Jonathan Schwartz said his company’s open-source file system, ZFS, will be introduced into Mac OS X. I’m sure Steve Jobs was happy he let the cat out of the bag early.
* BTW - I don’t know what it is, but I just like that CEO from Sun. Maybe it’s his name, or the long hair or the glasses. Hmm… sorry.
So what is ZFS? Well, first what isn’t it? It isn’t HFS+, Apple
’s current file system. ZFS is so much more than HFS+ and I believe NTFS as well. This filesystem, lovingly called Zettabyte File System shows some real promise as an enterprise class filesystem that can flat out run with no problems. It protects all files with 64-bit checksums to detect and fix data corruption and, as a 128-bit file system, can handle many orders of magnitude more space than current versions of Microsoft Read more:Leopard
Ranked #1 For Franzone On Google 2007-06-13 00:10:41 Booyah, baby! Take that mister Franzone Motors in Australia. I’ve had this domain for quite some time and it’s only since I’ve been blogging that I’ve ranked anywhere near the top for my namesake in the search results. So of course it has also become one of my obsessions to claim my rightful place at the top and tonight I have accomplished that goal. If you search for franzone on Google
you will see me there at the top now!
Go me! Yay.
Where Are The Family Posts? 2007-06-18 23:41:47 I’ve had a number of people inquire as to where the funny family posts went. Well, they have been queuing up in my head and in a to-do list as I have not been wanting to write them anymore in this blog. Why not? Well, I’ve been struggling with separation anxiety. No, I don’t miss my mommy… I just need to separate my blog posts to keep my readers segregated and my advertising kept on topic. Fear not, however I will be continuing that line of postings, but just not here.
I’ve upgraded and revamped our family site in preparation for this task and it is now ready. So any of you faithful readers who were previously interested in my family and parenting category may want to check out the new blog aptly named the Franzone Family
Blog. Now you can get all of the Franzone family humor without all of the geeky techno babble!
Of course don’t forget while you’re over there to:
Subscribe to my RSS Feed
And Subscribe to my Email Updates
That way you won&r
Find Song Lyrics From Your iGoogle Page 2007-06-18 21:23:30 Do any of you remember my post titled You Need Coolin’, Baby, I’m Not Foolin’? Basically I introduced my readers to the LyricWiki.org site which is a great way for you to look up lyrics and also allows you to contribute to the effort if you find songs that are not in the database.
Well, I’ve created a neat little Google Gadget that allows you to embed a quick lyrics search feature into your iGoogle personalized page powered by LyricWiki.org. You just type in the pieces of the song that you can remember and hit the Search button!
There is a product page on this site for the gadget named LyricWiki Search Gadget and it will soon be published in the Google Homepage Content Directory. You can also find it on the Google Modules website, an unofficial directory of Google Gadgets. Alright, alright enough with the web references.
Here is the obligatory screenshot. Ah, simplicity at it’s best! Even if I do say so myself.
Finally, if you want to install/add the gadget t
Organizing Sage 2007-06-18 05:00:27 I use Sage as my RSS news reader and so far it’s been great. This weekend I was looking at the plethora of news feeds I have subscribed and contemplated dropping some because of the huge list. I really didn’t want to get rid of any them though. What I needed was some organization! Sage does not inherently come built with any tabbed organizational tools for your RSS feeds though. Hmmm.
After spending some time looking for a new reader I decided I didn’t want to change. Perhaps I could modify Sage to do my bidding. I started looking through the options and how things worked. I didn’t get that far at all before I realized that Sage just stored your RSS feeds as bookmarks. Well, my bookmarks are stored in folders. I wonder…
I closed out my Sage options then went to the Firefox Bookmarks menu and Organize Bookmarks. I created some folders within the Sage folder to organize my feeds and placed my RSS feeds within their appropriate categories. Then I clicked the
Happy Father’s Day 2007-06-17 16:26:29 Sleep… need sleep. I was up all night working on a video presentation, so I’m really tired. I couldn’t sleep in either because we had to go to church and the kids were exited to give daddy cards and a present. Things have calmed down now so I just thought I’d shout out to all the dad’s out there that make sacrifices every day for your families.
Now, go take a nap! You deserve it.
Read more:Happy
, Father
Low Cost Batteries. Really. 2007-06-22 09:37:03 Have battery needs? Don’t want to pay a lot for them? Cell phones, camcorders, PDAs, UPS Backups, Digital Cameras, Rechargeable, Watch, Toy - R/C Car… the list goes on and on. LowCostBatteries.com sells… well you guest it, tons and tons of really low cost batteries. They even have FREE shipping on any orders over $99! What a bargain!
Well, being a tech geek I’ve dug through the site to see if they could fit the bill to meet some of my personal needs. Let me tell you they do not disappoint. Their prices on HP Laptop Batteries extremely competitive. Not only that, but they have a lot of other laptop batteries that you can browse through by make. Just click which laptop you own and they’ll list the batteries you need and the lowest prices! Simple.
This post has been sponsored
Read more:Low Cost
All Your To-Dos In A Toodledo 2007-06-21 17:50:33 How many lists do I have to keep track of my blogging activities? Let’s see… I know! I’ll make a list of them. DOH! That’s another list. I really need a better way of keeping track of my to-do lists. I’ve tried using the Task list in MS Outlook, but I just can’t get used to it. Plus it isn’t portable so whenever I have to go on the road I can’t take it with me in my handy flash drive.
Well, fear not… I have found an online solution that fits the bill. So far I really like this site. The site is called Toodledo.com and is an easy to use, web-based to-do list. Keeping track of all your tasks will help you avoid disorganization, stay motivated and be more productive. You should definitely check it out. Why?
The interface is super-easy to use. You can organize your tasks with folders, due dates, priorities, tags, contexts (home, office, on the road, etc), goals, notes and time estimates. You can sort and view your tasks in a variety o
Sometimes Geeks Are Not So Sexy 2007-06-21 11:51:15 Especially when their website goes down for the count! Geeks
AreSexy.net is a really great blog that I read on a regular basis. They keep pretty up to date on the technology scene and also post some pretty good geeky humor posts that are good for a laugh or two. Anyway, just caught them with an Internal Server Error and thought I’d post it up; mostly for my own amusement. Click the image below to see the full screen image capture on my flickr account.
Read more:Sometimes
You’re Fired! USA Network’s New Burn Notice 2007-06-21 03:14:39 What happens when a CIA agent gets fired? You will soon find out on USA Network’s Burn Notice, a new series premiering June 28.
The Lowdown
Jeffrey Donovan stars as Michael Westen, an international spy who suddenly finds himself blacklisted. Dumped in his hometown of Miami without money or resources, Michael struggles to put his life back together and find out why he’s been burned. In the meantime, he uses his unique skills and training to help people in need … mostly people who can’t get help from the police.
Michael is joined by Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar) an ex-IRA operative, who also happens to be an ex-girlfriend; and Sam (Bruce Campbell), a washed-out military intelligence contact who’s being used by the feds to keep tabs on Michael.
What I Think?
Secret Asian Man? No, that’s not it. The who’s identity? No, that’s not it. These spy flicks, under cover agent shows are all the rage these days and it’s no wonder. They have plenty of Read more:Fired
Tech Bundle - June 21, 2007 2007-06-21 02:07:37 Seven Tips To Get On The Good Side Of Your System Administrator
“I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I find it incredibly annoying when non-tech people assume that system administrators are walking computer encyclopedias. With this in mind, here are a few pieces of advice that will get you a few extra brownie points from your favorite system administrator”
23 Best Social Networking Toolbars and Plugins for Firefox
If you want to make your life easier and more socially productive, then these 23 social networking toolbars and plug-ins for the Firefox web browser will speed up your interaction with the leading social networks. No need to visit the sites direct; just post information via your browser - bookmarks, blog posts and more.
Nvidia GPUs To Be Repurposed as Supercomputers, Number Crunchers
NVidia’s branching out. The chipmaker, best known for its partners’ video cards and a sexy fairy, is to repurpose its GPUs for use in high-performance computing. Financi Read more:Bundle
Now Hiring! 2007-06-19 23:45:51 Well, not really… but I do have job postings now. Thanks to Job-A-Matic! You can see at the top of the page I have a navigation link to a Jobs page. Also on my sidebar there is a widget that displays a link to my Jobs page. Whenever I get hot job leads posted to the job board, the top five will appear on the sidebar.
Employers! Would you like to post your jobs on franzone.com? Sure you would. Why? I have a highly technical group of readers covering a broad spectrum of fields from network administration to software engineering. Plus at only $49 for a month long listing it’s such a bargain. What are you waiting for? Go post a job now!
Read more:Hiring
5 Ways To Keep Your Software Engineers Happy 2007-06-25 21:14:35 This is written for all of you project managers out there who are having problems keeping your software engineers happy. Actually, it’s written for anyone employing software engineers… period. Whether you think you are keeping them happy or not. I’m no expert on project management, but I am a software engineer and I do know what irritates the crap out of me. So here goes.
1) Give Us Problems, Not Solutions
This is by far one of the biggest irritations I have with PMs. You receive the problem from the customer and you relay that problem to “us”, the software engineer… if it doesn’t go through some sort of support system first. That’s it. Give a nice detailed description of the problem and then let us do our jobs. You are not the engineer and you are not the most qualified person to solve the problem… so stop trying to! We do not care about why you think it is happening. We especially do not care how you think we should fix it (unl Read more:Software
, Engineers
, Happy
LyricWiki Search Gadget Released 2007-06-23 13:42:29 I just released my latest WordPress plugin, the LyricWiki Search
Widget. If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog or site it adds a sidebar widget to search for song lyrics on LyricWiki.org. You can see it in action on my sidebar now, right below my last.fm album listings. I thought that was a fitting place for it.
I’ll also put a quick download link to it here, just in case you can’t wait to grab it!
LyricWiki Search Widget Plugin (24 kb)
Read more:Gadget
Get Paid To Write Google Gadgets 2007-06-28 00:42:12 Thanks to Google
Gadget Ventures you can now get paid for your hard work creating that awesome, fab Google gadget. Well, maybe you can. The page states that the program is “a new Google pilot program dedicated to helping developers create richer, more useful Google Gadgets.” Yeah, we know… they’re still trying to take over the world.
So what’s the scoop? How can you get in on the action? Nothing too big. You just have to have developed Google gadget that is currently published in the content directory that gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. Is that it? Easy
So how much can I get? There are two types of funding they are offering. The first is a flat out $5,000 grant to help the single developer to improve a gadget. The second is a seed investment of $100,000 to anyone who write a proposal to build a successful business model around the gadgets platform.
That’s great news, but there’s not really anything here for the little man on the bott Read more:Write
Mac vs PC Rap Parody 2007-06-27 13:54:24 I found a group of people that I now aspire to work with. Mac or PC guys, I want to be like you! Seriously folks, you have to watch this video. It’s a parody rap video of the Mac vs PC battles and I was in tears rolling on the floor shooting green tea out of nose while watching it. What? I don’t drink soda anymore… I can shoot anything I want out of my nose.
Tips For Recruiters: 5 Ways To Get Me To Call You Back 2007-06-26 22:02:33 As many of you know I’m on the hunt… for a job that is. I’ve gotten many calls, many emails, many leads and many pains in the… ahem. So this is a community service blog for all of you recruiters out there that are having a hard time getting through to me. It’s a guide to getting Jonathan Franzone, or any possible hire for that matter, to call you back. So listen up!
1) Email First, Then Call
If you’ve gotten my phone number and are calling me then you have my email address… period. I do not post my phone number without my email address and everywhere that it is posted I will state that I prefer an initial email to setup a call. Why is this? Because I do not want to waste your time or my time. If I am not interested in the position you have to offer or do not meet the qualifications listing then why bother with a phone conversation? I’ll politely respond not interested and we can both mutually continue with our lives.
2) Job Description
Online Storage And Backup 2007-06-26 11:39:26 Need more Online Storage
and Backup? Who doesn’t? Now you can have the same enterprise-class quality backup solution as the large corporations at a fraction of the cost. That’s great too, because we all know how important a good backup solutions is… don’t we? Of course we do! The problem with most backup solutions I’ve found, though is that they are so complicated to use that I usually don’t bother taking the time to use them.
Solution: IBackup! IBackup’s online storage features are so simple to use. User’s online data appears as a mapped drive or a folder on their computer. This provides for easy drag-n-drop and familiar explorer interface to work with online data. No other online storage services offer this feature with the kind of performance and security that IBackup offers.
This post has been sponsored
Flickr Now Has Photo Printing! 2007-07-02 22:06:51 Do you have a Flickr
account? Sure you do! Most people online do at least. Well I’m sure you’ve heard or seen when you logged in that they have printing now. That’s pretty nifty. You can set up your account to allow or disallow certain groups from printing your photos. I currently have mine set to allow my friends, family and any contacts to print my photos. Why? I don’t know.
What’s the cost? Well, the ole standard 4×6 photos will cost you $0.15 per print. That’s about standard across the board. Unfortunately it’s not cheap enough to pull me away from my current provider, which is Snapfish Photo
s. They are regularly $0.12 per print and you can get them as low as $0.10 per print if you pre-pay for your order. Not only that, but in a recent online photo printing shootout done by PC World Magazine, Snapfish ranked among the highest in quality of printed photos.
Too bad. I really love the online gallery aspects of Flickr, but I can’t s Read more:Printing
It’s Been Such A Long Time 2007-07-02 21:56:20 It’s been such a long time
I think I should be goin’, yeah
And time doesn’t wait for me, it keeps on rollin’
Sail on, on a distant highway
I’ve got to keep on chasin’ a dream
I’ve gotta be on my way
Wish there was something I could say…Boston - Long Time
One of my absolute favorite songs… and bands. It is a real tragedy that lead singer Brad Delp committed suicide.
Anyway, this blog isn’t about bands or music, it’s about running. It has been so long since I’ve run, thus the title. I finally felt today like I needed a breakthrough and to just “Do It” as my brand new (hardly been used) Nike shoes would have me believe. So at around 10:00 this morning I got my runnin’ shoes on and my iPod on and kicked my own butt out the door.
What’s that? Why’d I run in one of the hottest parts of the day? I guess because I’m stupid. No, honestly because the urge to run hit me and felt like I ne
Get Paid To Write Google Gadgets 2007-06-28 00:42:12 Thanks to Google
Gadget Ventures you can now get paid for your hard work creating that awesome, fab Google gadget. Well, maybe you can. The page states that the program is “a new Google pilot program dedicated to helping developers create richer, more useful Google Gadgets.” Yeah, we know… they’re still trying to take over the world.
So what’s the scoop? How can you get in on the action? Nothing too big. You just have to have developed Google gadget that is currently published in the content directory that gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. Is that it? Easy
So how much can I get? There are two types of funding they are offering. The first is a flat out $5,000 grant to help the single developer to improve a gadget. The second is a seed investment of $100,000 to anyone who write a proposal to build a successful business model around the gadgets platform.
That’s great news, but there’s not really anything here for the little man on the bott Read more:Write
Mac vs PC Rap Parody 2007-06-27 13:54:24 I found a group of people that I now aspire to work with. Mac or PC guys, I want to be like you! Seriously folks, you have to watch this video. It’s a parody rap video of the Mac vs PC battles and I was in tears rolling on the floor shooting green tea out of nose while watching it. What? I don’t drink soda anymore… I can shoot anything I want out of my nose.
Tips For Recruiters: 5 Ways To Get Me To Call You Back 2007-06-26 22:02:33 As many of you know I’m on the hunt… for a job that is. I’ve gotten many calls, many emails, many leads and many pains in the… ahem. So this is a community service blog for all of you recruiters out there that are having a hard time getting through to me. It’s a guide to getting Jonathan Franzone, or any possible hire for that matter, to call you back. So listen up!
1) Email First, Then Call
If you’ve gotten my phone number and are calling me then you have my email address… period. I do not post my phone number without my email address and everywhere that it is posted I will state that I prefer an initial email to setup a call. Why is this? Because I do not want to waste your time or my time. If I am not interested in the position you have to offer or do not meet the qualifications listing then why bother with a phone conversation? I’ll politely respond not interested and we can both mutually continue with our lives.
2) Job Description
Online Storage And Backup 2007-06-26 11:39:26 Need more Online Storage
and Backup? Who doesn’t? Now you can have the same enterprise-class quality backup solution as the large corporations at a fraction of the cost. That’s great too, because we all know how important a good backup solutions is… don’t we? Of course we do! The problem with most backup solutions I’ve found, though is that they are so complicated to use that I usually don’t bother taking the time to use them.
Solution: IBackup! IBackup’s online storage features are so simple to use. User’s online data appears as a mapped drive or a folder on their computer. This provides for easy drag-n-drop and familiar explorer interface to work with online data. No other online storage services offer this feature with the kind of performance and security that IBackup offers.
This post has been sponsored
5 Ways To Keep Your Software Engineers Happy 2007-06-25 21:14:35 This is written for all of you project managers out there who are having problems keeping your software engineers happy. Actually, it’s written for anyone employing software engineers… period. Whether you think you are keeping them happy or not. I’m no expert on project management, but I am a software engineer and I do know what irritates the crap out of me. So here goes.
1) Give Us Problems, Not Solutions
This is by far one of the biggest irritations I have with PMs. You receive the problem from the customer and you relay that problem to “us”, the software engineer… if it doesn’t go through some sort of support system first. That’s it. Give a nice detailed description of the problem and then let us do our jobs. You are not the engineer and you are not the most qualified person to solve the problem… so stop trying to! We do not care about why you think it is happening. We especially do not care how you think we should fix it (unl Read more:Software
, Engineers
, Happy
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