Blog – Page 23 – PDRater – Permanent Disability Calculators

How to Save Your Law Practice Money: Part I

How to stretch your law offices budget — How to stretch your law office's budget

Cost: $0.00

Savings: $150/computer

Here’s an easy way to save your law practice several hundred dollars in the next few months. The next time you have to purchase a new computer do not buy a copy of MicroSoft Office, MicroSoft Word, or WordPerfect. Even basic versions of these programs can run several hundred dollars per computer. ((Photo courtesy of Krug6)) You don’t have to purchase these programs!

Try OpenOffice instead! I have been using OpenOffice on my home and work computers for the last three years and have been extremely happy with it. I have given copies of this program to family, friends, and colleagues who are also all very happy with it. I’ve used it for simple correspondence, legal pleadings, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Here are a few “real world” benefits:

OpenOffice is totally 100% free open source software

Free as in free. Give it to your friends. Install it at home and on your kids’ computers. Don’t worry about software piracy. Its totally, completely, free.

OpenOffice has better document recovery

Its important to know that OpenOffice is much more stable than anything MicroSoft or WordPerfect has to offer. It is extremely rare that OpenOffice crashes on me. If you’re using MicroSoft Word and you haven’t saved your document at least once, a single crash will completely erase all of your progress. The very few times that OpenOffice has crashed on me I have gotten all of my data back – even when I haven’t saved the file once.

OpenOffice has everything you need

OpenOffice has all the features of MicroSoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and WordPerfect. You can also use the OpenOffice suite of software to open, edit, and save to MicroSoft Word and WordPerfect formats. It won’t automatically open the MicroSoft Office 2007 formats yet, but you can find plugins and software to do this for you (also for free). OpenOffice has spell check, grammar check, autocorrect, macros, and templates (even legal pleading templates!).

OpenOffice can do more than its competitors

OpenOffice can save as, open, and even edit a PDF. Editing a PDF requires a plugin, but it is very easy to install (and also free!). Just being able to print to a PDF is going to make your documents easier to share with others and, hopefully, one day easier to share with EAMS too. ((Not that EAMS will share with you.)) (( Don’t take it personally – EAMS pretty much hates everyone.))

If you’re not convinced to make the leap with your next computer purchase, then download OpenOffice now and give it a shot on your current computer. Here’s their website link:

Download OpenOffice.org – free word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software

Goggles4U Coupon Code for 20% Off!

By Jay Shergill Posted on June 18, 2009 Posted in Links, Not Workers Compensation No Comments Tagged with base curvature, Business Day, cheap glasses, cheap online glasses, cheap prescription glasses, Choices, Current, Curvature, Customer Service, E Mail, Eye Doctor, Eye Prescription, Glasses Frames, glasses online, globaleyeglasses coupon, globaleyeglasses review, goggle4u review, goggles4u coupon, Measurement, Metric Ruler, Millimeters, online glasses, online prescription glasses, Pairs, Prescription Glasses, Prescriptions, Pupilary Distance, Pupillary Distance, Pupils

A few months ago I ordered glasses online from Goggles4U.com and GlobalEyeGlasses. (Click those links to go to my full reviews of each website). The quality of the glasses was excellent and I paid about $80.00 for four pairs. ((Including one pair of sunglasses and one pair of transition lenses)) At those prices its like they were paying me to take the glasses off their hands. ((Photo courtesy of Morningstar Lee))

I just received a coupon code from Goggles4U for 20% off an order. The Goggles4U.com coupon code is: “glasses20″

Before you order glasses online, you should really take a look at my post about how to order glasses online in 5 easy steps. It even includes a chart for you to print out and take with you to your eye doctor! ((Just another way I try to make your life easier…))

MicroSoft loves PDRater disability calculators!

By Jay Shergill Posted on June 16, 2009 Posted in Blogging, Free, Marketing, PDRater, Search Engine Ranking, SEO, Technobabble No Comments Tagged with bing, bing is not crap after all, carl orff, carmina burana, o fortuna, philosophy, rubaiyat, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Results

And, really, what’s not to love about free permanent disability calculators? ((Photo courtesy of aWee)) ((That’s a picture of an accounting sheet!))

A few days ago I disparaged the MicroSoft and their new search engine, Bing.com. Today I tried a search for “permanent disability calculator” on their site. Guess who’s at the top? ((Hint: the website’s name rhymes with “PDRater“))

Search engine optimization, like fortune, is a fickle creature. ((This post has been brought to you by O Fortuna and the Rubaiyat.)) ((Look at me, waxing all philosophical!))

How to Buy a New Computer: Part III Basic Laptops

By Jay Shergill Posted on June 14, 2009 Posted in Laptop, PDRater, Technobabble No Comments Tagged with Alienware Laptop, basic laptop, Battery Life, Bored, Buy Computer, Cd Drives, Choices, Compromises, Computer Id, Computer Laptops, Computer Part, Deep Thought, Desktop, How To Buy A New Computer, Keyboard, netbook, Netbooks, New Laptops, Optical Drives, Photo Courtesy, regular laptop, Shame, simple laptop, Sky

I recently posted about how to buy a new computer. First, you need to think about balancing wants versus needs. My second post was about the new laptop category of cheap and lightweight netbooks.

Why should you choose a basic laptop?

If you are highly concerned about cost, portability, battery life and not as concerned about optical drives ((DVD/CD drives)) , screen size, or keyboard size you probably want a netbook. It will probably run you between $300 – $500. ((Photo courtesy of Ciccio Pizzettaro))

If cost-be-damned you just must have absolutely everything, well, then get yourself a high end laptop. ((Scroll to the bottom for my pic k.)) The sky’s the limit with a computer like this. You can configure an Alienware laptop that will make Deep Thought hide its processor in shame for $5,000.00 or so.

If you are concerned about cost but just cannot sacrifice optical drives, screen size, or keyboard size, you probably want a basic laptop. A basic laptop is all about compromises. You get the hardware you need from a desktop, but without the thin, light, elegant, and portable design. These laptops typically weigh between 6 and 8 pounds and cost between $600 and $1000 or so.

There are so many nearly indistinguishable computers in this category, there is no real point in suggesting a particular laptop. Just about every manufacturer has several choices for basic laptops.

Life’s Too Short

By Jay Shergill Posted on June 13, 2009 Posted in Not Workers Compensation No Comments Tagged with 30 Minutes, Agony, bad movies, Bored, Cinematography, Fifteen Minutes, Half Hour, I Heart Huckabees, i heart huckabees is the worst film ever, life is short, Movies, Realization, Rule Of Thumb, rules for watching movies, simple rules, Tv Program

I 3 Huckabees is the worst movie ever made — "I Heart Huckabees" is the worst movie ever made

Life’s too short to watch a bad movie. ((Like “I Heart Huckabees” the worst movie ever made. Just go to YouTube.com and do a search for “I don’t heart Huckabees” to see what I mean.)) Unfortunately, the only way to really determine whether a movie is bad is to wait until the end credits roll. ((Photo courtesy of Scootie.))

I have a simple rule about watching movies that has saved me countless hours of agony. I don’t care about reviews, awards won, who’s in the movie, what’s going on in the movie, or what’s about to happen. If I’m not entertained within 30 minutes, I shut it off. ((Fifteen minutes for a TV program.))

Before I created this rule I sat through innumerable movies in the hopes that they might somehow get better. Eventually I came to the realization that the people who made the movie boring me cannot be trusted to improve the movie before its end.

Don’t believe me? Try and think of one good movie that bored you for the first half hour. ((I can only think of one movie that falls into this category: Unforgiven. Cinematography, acting, blah, blah, blah. The movie was just barely worth it for the last fifteen minutes.))

What’s the worst movie you’ve seen?