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Author: Jay Shergill

Workers' Compensation Defense Attorney. Certified Specialist Workers Compensation Law. California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Partner at Purinton, Jimenez, Labo & Wu, LLP
Nov
13
2008
EAMS, Free, Laptop, Open Source, OpenOffice, PDRater, Technobabble, Workers Compensation Resources

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MicroSoft has no one to blame but themselves for my deleting MicroSoft Office.  Well, its partly Dell’s fault too, but that’s a long story I’ll tell some other time.  (Short version: Dell repaired a prior laptop and shipped it to a construction site in Oakland.)

Once I tried OpenOffice, I never looked back.  Its my preferred word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, office suite program.  Not only is it better than MicroSoft office in just about every way, but its also completely free.  You might be interested in trying it out because I believe it will help you tremendously with EAMS.

OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org released version 3.0 of their program on October 13, 2008.  It was so wildly popular that their website was crushed under the overwhelming demand.  The three most important things to know about OpenOffice are:

  1. Its open source, so its completely free.  So, there’s no reason not to give it a shot.
  2. It can open, edit, and save to any MS Office 2000, 2003, 2007, and WordPerfect formats.
  3. It can print or export any file to a PDF.

If you’re a Workers’ Compensation professional in California, you’re probably dealing with EAMS.  Since filing things with EAMS means working with a lot of PDF’s.  In order to keep from reinventing the wheel, it makes sense to save those PDF’s of the document cover sheets.  But what if you need to make a small change later on?  Well, OpenOffice v3.0 can help with that too.

Using an extension ((basically a small program)) OpenOffice can open and edit and re-save a PDF file. Not even Adobe, the company that promotes the PDF format1 , does a good job of opening and editing PDF’s.

This is a really big deal to me because editing saved PDF’s is going to save me a lot of time editing settlement documents and various pleadings.

Update

I wrote the above about a month ago while I gave OpenOffice 3.0 a shot.  It won’t install on my Vista laptop but works great on my XP desktop.  I’ve reverted to OpenOffice 2.4 on the laptop while I wait for a fix.  OpenOffice 2.4 is still free, but it won’t open MS Office 2007 formats (which not everyone is using anyhow) and cannot edit PDFs.

  1. I know that’s redundant. [↩]
Nov
12
2008
Business, Calculators, EAMS, Free, Javascript, PDRater, Technobabble, Workers Compensation Resources

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In a prior post I talked about the top five PDRater.com features that make your life easier.  But, when was the last time you thought about your office staff, hmm?

How can you make their job easier?  Well, the good news is you don’t have to, I’ve given you all the tools to make your office run faster and more efficiently, saving you time and money.

  1. American Idol, Top 5
    Top 5

    MPN’s.  Medical Provider Network lists, complete with logins and passwords.  Whether you’re on the applicant or defense side, your staff is going to need access to these lists.  You can find a doctor for your client or so you can give a list of doctors to opposing counsel.

  2. EAMS DWC to ADJ Number Search Engine. Chances are you’ve got cases with more than one “legacy” Board file number.  With this search engine, you can search for the corresponding EAMS ADJ numbers.  And, you can search for as many Board (or ADJ) numbers as you want at the same time, just by separating them with commas.
  3. EAMS Office Search Engine. When your staff is filling out documents for you, they’re going to need to know the correct name and address for all the parties.  When they need to call opposing counsel, they can also look up the phone number with this search engine.
  4. EAMS Document Type and Document Title Search Engine. Your staff needs a quick way to find the exact EAMS document type and EAMS document title for every document cover sheet getting filed with the Board.  Sure, they could comb through four or five pages of 3 point font on the Board’s form.  Or, better yet, they could search and find exactly the document type and title they need.
  5. EAMS Body Part Codes. There are 62 different body part codes in the EAMS system.  There’s no need to keep the EAMS chart on hand, just tell your staff what body part you want on the form and have them look it up on this website.
  6. DWC / WCAB  / EAMS Forms. There are now more than 130 different forms, new and “legacy”, available on the DIR website.  There’s no reason your staff should have to scroll up or down looking for the right form.  Type in a few characters and get a direct link right to the exact form you need.
  7. Date Calculator. Sure, everyone in your office could have their own date wheel.  In my experience, date wheels and money charts are two of the most commonly swiped office aides right after the good stapler and scotch tape.  With a date calculator built into the website, all of your staff can quickly and easily calculate the number of days between two dates or what day it will be in a certain number of days.

So, there you have the top 5, er 7, PDRater.com website search engine and workers’ compensation calculators your staff is going to benefit from using.  Registration for this site is quick, easy, and free.  Save your staff some time and frustration by having them register for this website and try out the calculators, search engines, and links.

Nov
11
2008
MySQL, Open Source, PDRater, PHP, Technobabble, Wordpress

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Wordpress
Wordpress

I’ve been upgrading to the latest releases of WordPress as soon as each one comes out.  And, its a good thing too.

Over the last week or two a website named “Wordpresz.org” ((I’ve edited the link so that it goes to WordPress.org instead.  I don’t want contribute to these hackers fooling anyone else.)) was discovered.  The people who created this website were using a vulenerability in WordPress version 2.6.2 to redirect users to their website.  Their website purported to release WordPress version 2.6.41.  The problem was that they had hacked one file in the installation package to create a bigger security vulerability.

This just goes to show that:

  1. Monitor for Updates. Many programs these days automatically check to see if new versions are available.  If the program does not have this feature2 , its a good idea to check about once a month or so.
  2. Update Frequently. Not all software updates are equal.  If the program is being updated to fix security vulnerabilities or improve the program’s stability, you definitely want to install the update.  This website’s installation of WordPress was already “inocculated” against this kind of attack because I had alled version 2.6.3 almost as soon as it came out.
  3. Use Official Sources. WordPress is open source software built using PHP and MySQL.  Since the program is open source, its easier to modify the code. ((As Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”))  The themes and plugins available through WordPress.org are reviewed by other users for malicious code and for possible improvements.  If you’re not certain how to examine source code for malicious code, its best to only use official sources.
  1. The latest version is 2.6.3 which is just version 2.6.2 with a small but important security fix. [↩]
  2. Or if you turn it off, as I sometimes do. [↩]
Nov
10
2008
Laptop, Not Workers Compensation, Technobabble

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Technical Difficulties
Technical Difficulties

A little over a month ago my laptop died.  I took it to a shop in Contra Costa County named, “Paramount Technologies” who were able to fix up my laptop in record time. 1  Apparently, the problem was the video chip which had loosened from the motherboard over time (probably through overuse).

Friday evening my laptop died all over again.  At least it was peaceful.  I put my laptop to sleep and it didn’t wake up again.

Its still under a repair warranty from Paramount Technologies, so I’ll take it back to them.  It has the same symptoms, so I hope its the same problem.  Even if it weren’t under warranty, my formula for determining whether I should invest in repairing or buying a new computer still dictates that I should probably repair.

No matter.  Be of good cheer: these troubles will have absolutely no effect on this website.  :)

  1. Estimate: 3 days.  Repair time: 3 hours.  Now, that’s what I call service. [↩]
Nov
7
2008
Occupational Code, PDRater, Technobabble

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89 days and counting...
Wake up!

Perhaps its the political climate, or the recent daylight savings time change, or that I’m an argumentative guy.  Today’s post is my argument against daylight savings time.12

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Daylight Savings Time was not invented by Benjamin Franklin.345 6 If Wikipedia is to be further believed, some guy named “William Willett” was the one who thought of it.

Its a mixed blessing for Mr. Willett that no one knows his name.  Ben Franklin gets the credit for daylight savings sandwiched between kudos for electric kites and bifocals.  Then again, Franklin also has to put up with abuse from people who hate daylight savings.  Such as myself.

The Benefits

Set aside for the moment the historical benefits to daylight savings time – the farmers getting out of bed and whatnot.  I’ll stipulate that it may have served some terrific purpose yeas ago.  The real issue is whether daylight savings time has any ongoing net benefits for our society.

Let’s assume arguendo there are practical benefits to getting everyone in your state to wake up, get home from work, and go to bed an hour earlier or later.  They have more “time” to do whatever is they want to do. 7  Let’s even suppose that having an “extra hour” improves the mood of people with seasonal affect disorder. 8

The Problems

Infrastructure. You have to admit that a truly Herculean effort is required to support the infrastructure necessary for daylight savings time.  People engineer wall clocks that manipulate the time twice a year.  Cell phones, computers, and TiVo’s all have to be pre-programmed to change the time twice a year.  Its exactly this kind of ridiculous time-accounting nightmare that lead to the Y2K bug in the first place.

Manual Upkeep. All of non-computerized devices such as coffee pots, car stereos, wristwatches, ovens, microwaves, climate control devices, and sprinkler systems need to be manually reset.  In this way, daylight savings time is almost like having a guaranteed power outage twice a year.

Productivity. The missed appointments, reschedulings, and groggy commuters and workers.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Starbucks was behind the continued use of daylight savings time.

Uniformity. Not every state, let alone every country, uses daylight savings time.  What happens why you’re in California and you need to call Hawaii or Arizona before the close of business? 91011

Workers’ Compensation Claims. The workers compensation implications alone are staggering.12 Every home and every office must keep one poor bastard around whose job duties include dragging a chair or step ladder around the office to change all the wall clocks.

If the Office Poor Bastard falls and gets hurt, you’re going to have to hand him a claim form.  If the Office Poor Bastard gets an attorney, that attorney is going to see the mechanism of injury and argue for a higher occupational code than “Office Poor Bastard.”1314 The Office Poor Bastard will be considered an occupational code 482, “RIGGER, HIGH amuse. & rec.”15

The Solution

There are two possible solutions.

First, we eliminate daylight savings time.  If the potential drawbacks of daylight savings time outweigh the benefits, then it should be eliminated it.

Secondly, as an alternative we could agree to set the entire coutnry on the time halfway between daylight savings time and non-daylight savings time.  If you get 100% of the benefits and drawbacks from daylight savings time, then at the time halfway in-between you’d get half the benefit and drawbacks. 1617

I’m in favor of eliminating daylight savings time altogether, but I would certainly be willing to “split the baby.”

  1. I wonder if I should try to put it on the ballot as a proposition… [↩]
  2. Original photo courtesy of Laffy4k. [↩]
  3. Third best Ben Franklin quote here. [↩]
  4. Second best Ben Franklin quote: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper.” [↩]
  5. Best Ben Franklin quote: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  Too political for a Friday?  :/ [↩]
  6. Thanks QuoteDB!  [↩]
  7. Keep in mind, they get no more than one “extra” hour. [↩]
  8. Not that I think anyone’s arguing this.  I’m just setting up the best possible arguments in favor of daylight savings time. [↩]
  9. Those Arizonans really are mavericks. [↩]
  10. Or, how about: “Well, I guess Hawaiian and Arizonans are both mavericks!” [↩]
  11. Too soon? [↩]
  12. I bet you thought this wasn’t going to have anything to do with workers’ compensation. [↩]
  13. “211 OFFICE CLERK, GENERAL clerical,” for those of you playing at home. [↩]
  14. <shameless plug>I’d suggest this great workers’ compensation website to help you find such things.</shameless plug> [↩]
  15. I say this only half-jokingly.  Years ago I had someone make this exact argument to me.  Ken, I’m looking at you. [↩]
  16. This assumes an arithmatic progression of benefits and costs associated with daylight savings time. [↩]
  17. This also assumes that no new benefits or costs are conferred by half-daylight savings time.  I can concieve of at least one additional drawback – namely that the United States would be in time zones half an hour from the rest of the world.  Then again, I suppose that’s better than being a full hour off? [↩]
Nov
6
2008
Author, Business, Calculators, Free, Marketing, PDRater

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A while ago a very entrepreneurial friend of mine suggested I read a book called, “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki.  This one book is responsible in no small part for the website you see today.1  Guy worked for Apple and later started an influential and innovative venture capital firm, Garage.  As if that wasn’t enough, he’s a frequent lecturer, best selling author, and avid blogger.

In one of his recent articles, he talks about “Plan B for Fund Raising.”  Here’s my take on Plans A and B:

Plan Bee*
Plan Bee

Plan A

Anyone who was alive during the late 90’s has heard of “Plan A.”  Build a prototype, put together a PowerPoint presentation, get some venture capital, and spend venture capitalist money.  You know how this story ends.  The company gets bought out and everyone is rich or the company never goes anywhere and its assets are sold for scrap.

Plan B2

Anyone who was alive during the 70’s knows all about “Plan B.”  These are the people who started businesses in their garage.  I suppose we really only hear about the success “Plan B” stories.  No one’s surprised when a home business doesn’t go big so no one talks about it.  Plan B is where somebody believes so feverishly in their own idea they work on it nights and weekends after they come home from their day job as a barrista.

The whole reason I’m writing this blog post, indeed the reason why I have this blog and website at all, is because of “Plan B.”  At its most hectic in the last year, I was working a day job, doing contract attorney and techie work for various clients, while marketing and programming these calculators.  While I didn’t live with my parents, I participated in a surprisingly (and embarrassingly) large number of the activities Guy describes under Plan B.

This is NOT something I intend to do ever again.  Thankfully, the hard work of building the calculators is done.3  These days my only continuing time commitment to this site is writing blog posts and answering fan mail.4

  1. So, if you don’t like it – blame him!  Haha! [↩]
  2. Original photo courtesy of Eye of Einstein [↩]
  3. Well, more accurately, its always almost done.  ;) [↩]
  4. But, mostly blog posts. [↩]
Nov
5
2008
PDRater

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I never thought I would see in my lifetime any of the following people nominated for president:

  • An African-American
  • A child of a non-American
  • Someone with a non-traditional first or last name
  • Someone with the middle name Hussein

I am never prouder as a citizen when I am voting.  And last night at 8:30pm, I have never been prouder of America.

Congratulations to Barak Obama and Joe Biden.  I do not envy you gentlemen – you’ve got a lot of hard work ahead of you.

Nov
4
2008
Not Workers Compensation

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Go vote today.  No matter how you vote you’ll be part of history.  And, if you don’t vote, you’ll have no right to complain.

Random voting tidbits:

  • I heard on NPR last night that California does not honor the postmark on an absentee ballot.  If you  you haven’t mailed in your absentee ballot yet, it will not be accepted with today’s postmark.  You will need to call or go to a voting precinct to drop off your vote in person.
  • Also per NPR if you’re not in line when the voting precinct says its 8:00PM, you’re out of luck.  Be in line well before 8:00PM to make sure you are allowed to vote.
  • I have a distrust of voting machines given what we’ve been hearing about all of the voting machine malfunctions and vote-switching going on in the East coast.  Once you’ve made all your selections, double check your answers to make sure the machine got them right.  If your ballot machine has a paper-ticket, make sure that matches the electronic screen.  Someone I know recommended putting your driver’s license on the voting machine itself and taking a picture of your vote with a camera or camera phone.
Nov
3
2008
Author, Calculators, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources

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Obama and McCain on heathcare
Obama and McCain on heathcare

October was another pretty good month for PDRater.com. During the month of October, the traffic for this website increased by about 25%, I added a few new calculator features, I completely changed the look of the website, and we passed the 200 registered users mark.1

In no particular order, I’m including my favorite “photoshopped” pictures from October on the right side.  The footnotes below link to the original photographers.  None of them are to blame for the photoediting. 2345

Top Posts Awards:

Obama vs McCain: Round 3
Obama vs McCain: Round 3

2008 Presidential Election Coverage:

2008 Economic Turmoil Coverage:

*PDRater up, the Dow down
PDRater up, the Dow down

I added on to my “Road Warrior Checklists”:

In case you’re interested, here’s the best of September 2008.

  1. At the time of this post, 227 registered users! [↩]
  2. Special thanks to the kind people who use Flickr for making their photos available for use. [↩]
  3. Photos courtesy of richardmasoner, C_Dave, and mikewade. [↩]
  4. Photo courtesy of DaveHogg. [↩]
  5. Photo courtesy of Daniel Martini. [↩]
Oct
31
2008
Not Workers Compensation

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Jack-o-Lantern - Cat
Jack-o-Lantern - Cat

Pumpkin Carving Tutorial

((PDRater and Jay Shergill are not responsible for any use or misuse of these instructions.  Please only attempt in well lit, well ventilated, area in the presence of trained medical professionals.  In fact, its really just better if you don’t do this at all.))

Last night I carved our Jack-O-Lantern.  It seemed a waste to not use the rest of that pumpkin real estate, so I carved one side into a cat and the other side as a skull.

Tools of the Pumpkin Carving Trade:

  • Apron
  • Sharp large kitchen knife
  • Sharp small kitchen knife
  • Wide rounded cheese knife (looks like a paddle)
  • Plastic bag (for pumpkin guts)
  • Chopsticks
  • Washable markers
  • Sandwich bag and flashlight or
  • Candle
  • Adult supervision
Jack-o-Lantern - Skull
Jack-o-Lantern - Skull

Directions:

  • Wear apron.
  • Put pumpkin in sink.
  • Cut top out using large knife.  I prefer to make a jagged gut around the top.
  • Use wide paddle-knife to scoop out the insides into the plastic bag.
  • Draw your design on the pumpkin using the marker.
  • Cut out your design using the small knife.
  • Use the chopsticks to punch out any small pieces that don’t easily fall out.
  • When done carving, wash off any excess marker (you’re still in the sink, remember?).
  • Put flashlight in the sandwich bag, put the sandwich bag inside the pumpkin.

Tips:

  • If you look at the skull carving, you’ll notice that both the skull and jaw appear to be free-standing.  The skull is still attached at the top and the jaw is attached at the two sides.  All you need to do is only cut part-way into the pumpkin in those areas – the light source will make it appear to be free-standing/floating.
  • Using the flashlight is probably significantly safer than a candle.
  • Consider adding water and dry ice to the pumpkin for a mist-like effect.
    • If you do, you’ll have to use the flashlight-in-the-sandwich-baggie trick.  As the dry ice sublimates, it will extinguish any flame by depriving it of oxygen.1234

Enjoy!

  1. What, you didn’t know the word sublimate??? [↩]
  2. Sublimate is the name for the process of a solid material converting directly into its gaseous state. [↩]
  3. Since dry ice is just solid (frozen) carbon dioxide, it would basically starve any flame of oxygen. [↩]
  4. Many fire extinguishers actually work by simply shooting carbon dioxide onto the target flame/heat source. [↩]