What bring me the idea of this article is that for too many times, when looking over the jobs board I see a long list of job requirements for front end jobs, more of them from back-end area, a kind of all-in-one salad (the title is “Hiring Front End Developers but they are asking for PHP, .NET, mySql and other server’s technologies skills).

Well, I don’t have nothing against an employee asking for all of this skills to fit one candidate (sadly they will ask for all of these at almost every job posting) but let’s make a little bit of separation between front end and back end, let’s put a stop to “one man orchestra” and see these things into their real light. If you are that lucky employee who has that kind of web developer doing front end and back end coding without no problem then you probably should pay 100k per year for your man. But why I have the feeling that you’re not?

OK with that, but what is really doing a front end developer. Just let me take a deep breath of “fresh” air coming from my computer’s fans… and let me start with the obvious of all – this job is strong related to the web UI (user interface). This means everything you see when you open a web page is the work of the front end web developer, all those design elements translated into web pages represents the bread and the water of the everyday front end development: the general style of the page, drop-down menus, the nice arrangement of text and images on pages, all this final design and architecture of a website is done by a front end web developer, or it should be.

On the other hand, the back end developer, simply saying, should create the functionality of a website and facilitate the connections between the UI and database so if the users will type something or will interact in any way with a web page what they do will have an effect or will be saved into a database.

If we look into detail a front end developer is keeping count of:

- transforming of PSD to HTML web pages helping on the way with CSS and JQuery
- coding emails newsletters from PSDs, PDFs or other finalized designs (usually coming from web designers or graphic designers)
- improving the user experience with Web Usability standards
- helping the SEO consultant (if any) on on-site optimization for Google Search – web pages speed, clean code, keeping count of the keywords, meta tags, headers, page titles, etc
- helping the copywriter in writing and adding of the page content
- helping the web designer and giving leads over images size, placement on page, choosing the right ones, etc
- consulting with the project manager about the project, taking the specifications and transforming them into a nice looking website
…and many more.

As I said at the beginning I’m not gonna get granular with this. What I wanted to say, if not clear enough already, is that there is too much information to be handled by a single man, a back end developer. Here is where the front end developer is coming in place and bring its contribution to the company, shortening the web development process and making the website to look good, to load fast and make a good impression anytime an user is opening a page.

One thing is really getting me: malware! No more than a few days ago I’ve got this awful virus message right before the user login screen. I am using XP Professional on my PC and XP is becoming worst day by day as I’ve got in the last 6 months at least 2-3 infections. On my Lenovo ( :P ) laptop I have Windows 7 Professional, which seams to be the safest OS I ever used and even if is giving me a lot of nerves because of the fancy style a kinda like it.

So, what about this virus message? I’ve rebooted in Safe mode and I tried a couple of spyware remove tools I’ve found on internet but nothing to solve my problem. After an hour or so I discovered a very powerful antispyware and finally I removed the spyware. The software is SUPERAntiSpyware and I am just amazed about it’s simplicity, speed and power and last but not at least the price.

I will share with you just a few details because I don’t want to write a full review about, but since I am really excited about my discovery and still out there are a lot of threats over the internet, we must stay safe.

So, how do you choose your antivirus / antispyware?

For me the price is the first thing I’m looking. Not that I am cheap but anytime the price matter for me. There are many effective products available for free, including SUPERAntiSpyware and I’ve tried over the years the majority of them. What makes the difference between them, and is important, is to choose software with scanning and removal capabilities close as possible with the paid edition.

In this case I’ve tried first SUPERAntiSpyware’s Free Edition and it cleaned and removed this infection as advertised with no catch or fine print. I could have choose to stay with the free version as is doing a damn good job but I’ll always prefer the paid versions especially since in the Pro Edition I take advantage of features such as Scheduled Scanning, Real-Time Protection and Automatic Definition Updates.

You might think that is gonna to be expensive but it isn’t. I’ve payed for SUPERAntiSpyware 39.90 bucks (4 beers) to cover both two computers I have, FOR LIFE. This is the best thing I ever got from an antimalware solution – no annual renewal fees! Hell yeah!

SUPERAntiSpyware is working just prefect with my Norton Antivirus. I have heard that running multiple security solutions is a bad idea. Not in this case. SUPERAntiSpyware it seams that has been designed to work well with others, and its small footprint is not slowing down my computer. I am used to have opened Photoshop and Dreamweaver in the same time as I’m working on websites permanently and the CPU is constantly at 30-40% like before. Not bad :)

Another thing I like about SUPERAntiSpyware is that is working on 32bit and 64bit OS so I’ve got an antispyware for both my computers and with a life license. As I have been told by my friends they couldn’t find a real solution for 64bit. I’m not an expert though in antivirus solutions but I’ve heard that the majority of those are removing 32-bit infections only. Mine – both! Go and get a real antispyware you Billy boy! :))

On Toronto Questions and Answers you might find answers to you questions or you can contribute as well to give answers to anyone looking to know better this beautiful Canadian city, Toronto.

Also I am interesting in your feedback. If you think the colors are not OK, something is not good or have any other suggestion to make the things better, please drop a line at: no-reply@torontoask.com.

Thanks!

I recommend for barometric calibration to use the location where you spend the most of your time, for me is my job place, the computer desk I’m working on and where I am checking for weather changes on a daily basis. I recommend also, to do not take off your watch from your wrist!

So, to make your wrist barometer work like a scientific barometer (it’s an exaggeration, of course) you’ll have to do the following:
1. google it for the local barometric pressure, eg. Toronto atmospheric pressure. Now that you have the real value get to the next step.
2. press the barometric button (mine is at the right-middle). You should have now the value displayed on your watch screen.
3. press now the adjust button for a couple of seconds until the screen is flashing.
4. press the select button (on my watch, Casio Pathfinder PAG80-1V, is on left) until is flashing OFF on the screen.
5. now is finally the adjusting phase. Press top-right / bottom-right buttons to adjust the barometer reading to the right one (you have been google it at the beginning of the calibration).

You’re done.

Remember, use for this calibration your location your spend the most of your time and do not take the watch, off your wrist. Of course is better if you’re adjusting as close is possible to the point in the town the barometric pressure measurement is taken, but on the other hand if your watch is calibrated outside you’ll have either to go outside all the time to read the atmospheric pressure or to assume all the time that there is a difference between what weather is showing your watch and the real weather from out there, thinking of the fact that the walls can interfere with your barometric readings.

Thanks for reading!

So, what’s wrong with Samsung Rant?

First of all, the quality of battery is worst than any phone I have been using in the last years, especially when is coming to listen mp3s. This is draining almost instantly the battery and is one of the thing that are really pissing me off.

The menu is such a shame. They were setup the menu to open on Internet Browser. If the phone is somehow getting unlocked in your poket the phone will go wild on the internet without you even knowing this. I discovered this happened in one day when I was riding my bike and guess what? The phone was opened by itself internet pages for a couple of hours. You don’t even guess how much I did payed for this stupid thing.

When Rant is gonna die, is really dying. When is coming to being discharged, the battery is running out of energy so fast! Be prepared when you’re on a single line of battery energy to plug it for recharging. I remember my old Nokia phone which was staying almost one full day on one line battery level. And was a really really old (and big! – do you remember Nokia 5110?).

Oh, I almost forgot about an important thing, the vibrations. Samsung Rant doesn’t give you the chance to setup both, the ringer and the vibration, you can pick up only one of these two. This is a kind of annoying thinking that sometimes we want to have both activate, the vibrations and the ring tone.

The contact list. Every time you go to see or modify one of the contacts, after finishing is not returning you the that contact in the list but at the beginning of the list. This being said, you modify a contact and you save it. When you go back you are at the beginning of the list. Just imagine if you want to modify a couple of contacts, you are starting modifying it in alphabet order and your contact list has 1,000 entries. This was getting me for a few times.

I will be back with new writings about Samsung Rant as I’m discovering something interesting to write. Meanwhile, peace! :P

Updates.
You might find interesting my new article about how to receive e-mails as text messages for free on your mobile. (April 2010)

So, what’s the deal? The deal is that I’ve got a very powerful watch. Besides of the time measurement precision, specific Casio watches (I’ve been using Casio watches for many years – the first one bought back in 1994 from my first student scholarship), this watch is offering other interesting measurements, using triple sensors for temperatures, atmospheric pressure (barometer capabilities) and last but not least a pretty nice compass. And, another thing, is a BIG watch. If you have a tiny wrist, like I have, think twice before buying it. No problem if you’re at least as crazy, as I am, after watches.

I am sure, everyone who’s wearing a similar watch has no problem in interpreting the readings except, maybe, the barometer pressure values. This is because there is no lead of how to interpret this readings into the Casio manual received in the box, nor in the pdf manual that I found on the internet.

So, how to interpret the barometer readings for a Casio watch? First of all I think that this way of interpretation of barometer readings is the same for every watch or barometer, so, don’t worry if you are using a different tool for atmospheric pressure measurements, a different watch or even a normal barometer.

Both units you can set the Casio barometer readings are standards used in North America, inHg and hPa. The question is how to read these barometric values? Searching within dozens of websites I have got finally I clear idea what the barometric readings mean in terms of weather condition.

First, set your Casio watch on inHg units and make a reading. The following values will help you to understand clear what can you expect from the weather based on you watch barometer readings.

I’ll be back with a more detailed Casio PAG-80 Pathfinder review.

Here more detailed info about atmospheric pressure and barometers.

UPDATES.
Check the weather using hPa readings.

Here is the pdf Casio PAG80-1V pathfinder user manual for free download.