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Category: PDRater
One more phone
A friend sent me an e-mail letting me know their Verizon LG 9400 phone works with the calculator test. (Thanks Patty!) According to Verizon’s site this phone is out of stock.
FYI, when I need to research a phone, I use PhoneScoop.com. I find it a handy way to search/compare features. My own phone… has seen better days. I’m thinking the LG Dare, but we’ll see.
If your phone does not already work with PDRater.com, have you tried using a different web browser on your phone? Everyone knows Internet Explorer (sorry, no link :P ), most people know about FireFox (my own browser of choice), but there’s also Opera and OperaMini. OperaMini can be installed on some phones as an alternative to the factor web browser. From playing around with the OperaMini demo page, it looks like OperaMini will work with my calculators.
Almost completely off topic, have you seen the iPhone simulator? Sure, it doesn’t play music or make phone calls, but if you need a fix or want to test out some calculators (ahem), it’s a pretty cool website. ((Do people even use iPhones for telephone calls anymore? That’s sooo analog. . . .))
Cell phones and the calculators
Thus far, I’ve discovered only two cell phones that can take advantage of my calculators:
- LG Dare, Verizon
- Apple iPhone, AT&T
- LG Voyager, LG enV, LG enV II
- Blackberry anything
- Palm anything
I’ve only tested the iPhone with the version of this site launched on September 17, 2007. However, it should still work.
Do you have a cell phone with a web browser? Click here:
If you see a message appear, your phone will probably work with the calculators.
Totally Unrealistic Goals
So, yeah, the whole getting the “new calculators working” by July 23, 2008 thing isn’t going to happen. But, you knew that. I’m kinda sorry I even wrote that post. Two reasons:
- I broke the cardinal rule of software development. Under-promise and over-deliver. As a one-man show, I’m wearing the programmer and project manager hats. I should really know better by now. A friend of mine had a great post on this exact issue.
- And, I ended a sentence with a preposition.
That said, here’s my new goal: Updated calculators before the 2009 Permanent Disability Rating Schedule is adopted!
PDRater – a retrospective
Today PDRater.com is one year old! You can click on the images below to see what this site used to look like.
The very first version of this website was launched on July 23, 2007.
On a whim I looked up what else has happened on July 23. Birthdays: Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, Raymond Chandler mystery writer, Woody Harrelson, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Slash of Guns N’ Roses.
Thank you wikipedia!
This first version of PDRater.com only calculated old and new schedule ratings and generated reports. Pretty ugly, I know. At this point I was just trying to put together something that would work.
I updated the entire website on September 17, 2007. I’m sure other important things happened on this date too.
This version of the website offered MDT (multiple disabilities table) calculators, CVC (combined value chart) calculators, lists of work restrictions, and a life expectancy calculator.
This was the first time that I offered a subscription version with additional features.
This is also the first version that had any kind of advertising. I started off with the ubiquitious Google Adsense you see everywhere. Then I put up ads from an independent certified impairment rating specialist SnapRater.com and a court reporter Janet Lombardi & Associates.
I spent WAY too much time developing the version of this site launched on January 1, 2008.
This version included a date calculator, temporary disability rate calculator, wage loss / total partial disability calculator, life expectancy calculator, life pension calculator, average weekly wage calculator, simple interest calculator, and permanent total disability calculator.
My goal was to offer more California workers’ compensation calculators than anyone else anywhere on the internet – and do it for free. I’m fairly certain that there is no other single source that has more calculators than you’ll find here.
The version of the website you’re now viewing was launched on July 6, 2008. I had been fiddling with WordPress as a website/blog platform for several months before this but didn’t switch over the main site until July 6.
Using WordPress as a website platform for these calculators has allowed me to focus on providing better content (links, downloads, self-indulgent blog posts) and on the calculators themselves.
When I launched this latest version, I took out all of the advertising so that I could focus on making the website look better.
That said, July 23, 2008 was a totally unrealistic and overly optimistic target date for totally revamped calculators. I really don’t know what I was thinking.