Website Updates

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Nov
14
2008
PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates

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This baby monkey has nothing to do with workers' compensation at all.
This baby monkey has nothing to do with workers compensation at all

This website was recently re-launched on July 6, 2008 in a “blog” style format using WordPress to power everything except the calculators.1

On July 23, 2008 this website was all of one year old.  That day I made a goal of posting something2 every single weekday.3  Today is the 100th post on this site and I can’t help feeling somewhat accomplished.4

As any website regular can tell, I’m constantly tinkering with this site.  I fully understand constant change might be somewhat disorienting.  On the other hand, I’m making these changes in an effort to improve the appearance and usability of the website.

Most recently, I moved the Medical Provider Network and Links sub-pages to be their own5 menu options.  These pages seem to be things people use a lot and really deserve their own spot at the top.  Then again, I don’t want the top menu to be too cluttered.  There’s really no one great solution to this dilemma.

Other changes I’m considering:

  1. Moving the EAMS and WCAB search functions to their own page.  Some users6 use these functions exclusively and probably don’t appreciate the dozen or so other calculators.
  2. Combining the Blog and Articles pages.  I haven’t done this so far because I doubt people want to sift through my technobabble to learn something about workers’ compensation.

While I have you here:

Drop me a line and let me know.

  1. Photo courtesy of nycgeo. [↩]
  2. Admittedly, sometimes nonsense. [↩]
  3. Even on holiday-weekdays. [↩]
  4. I’m not exactly ready for NaNoWriMo, but you need to walk before you can run. [↩]
  5. Top level [↩]
  6. I suspect mostly non-attorneys. [↩]
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
27
2008
1997 PDRS, 2005 PDRS, Calculators, Combined Values Chart, Javascript, Multiple Disabilities Table, PDRater, Permanent Partial Disability, Subscription Features, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources

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Not a new calculator
Not a new calculator

Last week, at the request of a paid subscriber, I added a new permanent disability rating calculator feature.1 2 Prior users had asked about incorporating an automatic dollar value of permanent disability or “money chart”  For the reasons I described in that prior post, I just couldn’t think of a good way to incorporate an automatic calculation of the monetary value of permenant disability.

New Paid Subscriber Feature

New Calculator
New Calculator

Once I added this feature, I realized there were at least two more instances when an automatic calculation of dollar value of permanent disability might come in very handy: when calculating the Multiple Disabilities Table3 or Combined Value Chart4 values from combining one or more permanent disability ratings.

Now, when a paid subscriber calculates the CVC or MDT of multiple ratings, the calculated combined rating is fed to the dollar value of permanent disability calculator and the dollar value calculated.

  1. Old calculator photo courtesy of ansik. [↩]
  2. New calculator photo courtesy of dan taylor. [↩]
  3. 1997 Permanent Disability Rating Schedule [↩]
  4. 2005 Permanent Disability Rating Schedule [↩]
Oct
24
2008
Author, Free, Javascript, MySQL, Not Workers Compensation, Open Source, PDRater, PHP, Technobabble, Website Updates, Wordpress

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Wordpress Upgrade
Wordpress Upgrade

Quick Update

or those of you keeping score at home, I’ve updated to WordPress v2.6.3 last night. 1  This version was released as a security fix.  Unlike other WordPress upgrades, this one took only a few seconds.

Less Quick Updates

Admittedly, prior updates probably only take about 10 minutes, max.  This 10 minutes includes roughly 9 minutes of backing the website and database up and 1 minute of actually uploading the new version.  Since the 9 minutes of backing up is essentially all processing/downloading time, there’s nothing for me to monitor which makes the whole process very painless.

Upcoming Updates

The kind folks over at WordPress have been hard at work on the version 2.7. 2  If you scan through the above link, you’ll get to see what the new WordPress 2.7 control panel/dashboard is supposed to look like.

Best Thing About WordPress

(If you just can’t wait, skip down two paragraphs.)  Regular readers have heard me go on and on about the virtues of WordPress. 3  The interesting thing about new versions of WordPress is that any upgrades would be seamless to a website visitor. 4

A website that is easy to read is a function of the author

Website content is really all that matters to a website visitor.  Visitors don’t care about what software a website owner is using – just as long as the content is useful. 5

A website that is easy to write is a function of the program

The single best thing about WordPress is that this program makes maintaining a website a breeze.  I would recommend WordPress to absolutely anyone interested in creating a website.  For the novice, the program makes it easy to write, edit, and delete single pages or the entire website without any knowledge of programming.  For the tech-minded, the program makes it easy to install, upgrade, and personalize a website.

If you know a little PHP, MySQL, and javascript you could do some c-r-a-z-y things with WordPress. 678

  1. Talk about unnecessary decimal places. [↩]
  2. I call them “kind” since a lot of these people are working for free. [↩]
  3. You know, you three should really form some kind of support group for people who read unnecessarily nerdy and self-referential blogs. [↩]
  4. I think its interesting, anyhow. [↩]
  5. If they don’t care about what kind of software, they sure as heck don’t care its version 2.6.3. [↩]
  6. You could even put together your own workers compensation calculators and EAMS search engines! [↩]
  7. Am I going overboard with these footnotes? [↩]
  8. The answer is “No, I’m not going overboard.”  In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, “You can never go too far.” [↩]
Oct
23
2008
1997 PDRS, 2005 PDRS, Calculators, CSS, Downloads, Free, PDRater, Permanent Partial Disability, Subscription Features, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources

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Running Puppy
This puppy has nothing to do with this post whatsoever.

Last Friday I announced some “website tweaks.”  Since then a paid subscriber1 reiterated a feature request.2 As a paid subscriber, he is able to calculate an unlimited number of ratings so that they all show up on a single page.  Basically, he wanted to be able to see the dollar value for a particular permanent partial disability percentage at the same time as a rating.

This isn’t the first time I’ve wrestled with the problems in creating such a feature.  There are several problems with incorporating this feature into the calculator’s page.

  1. The rating calculator and the dollar value of permanent disability calculators cannot be open at the same time.
  2. The rating calculator does not require the date of injury, just the age of the injured worker.  Without the date of injury, the website cannot properly display the dollar value of a permanent partial disability percentage.
  3. When a paid subscriber has performed more than one rating calculation on a page, the website cannot decide which rating string to convert into the equivalent number of dollars.

This exact feature had been suggested by other users in the past.3  My original thinking was that trying to accommodate this feature request would involve too many unknown variables.  After giving the matter some more thought, here’s what I’ve come up with:

  • Paid subscribers benefit from improved print formatting. Basically, I’ve created a special file that changes the way the calculator page looks when a paid subscriber is printing. 4  Paid subscribers benefit from having the calculator page streamlined specifically for printing.
  • Paid subscribers can have more than one calculator open at a time. This one feature probably addresses 90% of this user’s concerns.  If you’re able to keep both calculators open at the same time, it should be easy to perform a rating and then turn the percentage into a dollar value.
  • Paid subscribers receive automatic calculations of dollar value of ratings. When a paid subscriber performs a rating calculation, the “Dollar Value of Permanent Disability” calculator automatically opens and the dollar value of the rating is automatically calculated.  The user will still have to adjust calculation to account for the year of the injury.  However, this is probably the most elegant solution to this issue.
  1. As opposed to a free subscriber [↩]
  2. Thanks Marc! [↩]
  3. And even some competitors!!! [↩]
  4. The special file is actually just some CSS to optimize page for printing. [↩]
Oct
20
2008
Calculators, EAMS, PDRater, Website Updates

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It was not very long ago I announced 100 registered users for this site.  Today there are more than 200 registered users of this website.1  Since that time:

Pass Go, Collect 200
Pass Go, Collect 200

Wikipedia has this to say about the number 200:

  • 200 MeV is the temperature of quark-gluon plasma phase transition. 4
  • An HTTP status code indicating a successful connection.
  • The sum of dollars given in the classical Monopoly game to a player passing Go.
  1. Photo courtesy of Mark Strozier. [↩]
  2. Scroll down about halfway to see the list of new calculators. [↩]
  3. As long as the economy and presidential election keeps giving me material, I’m not afraid of writer’s block. [↩]
  4. Of course it is… [↩]
Oct
17
2008
Author, Average Weekly Wage, Business, EAMS, Free, Open Source, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Wordpress, Workers Compensation Resources

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Changing themes for a WordPress website is incredibly easy.  However, sometimes there can be slight problems in the transition.  I had heavily edited and customized the prior theme’s code so that it would be better suited to this website.1

Fixing things
Fixing things

Changing the website’s theme has involved a few small tweaks2 :

  • For about four days the Articles section was merged with the Blog section.  This has been fixed.
  • I’ve found a really great plugin that allows me to insert footnotes into blog posts.3  My previous attempts at inserting footnotes manually were either time consuming or incredibly clumsy. 4
  • I’ve made minor alterations to the current theme – background colors, menu ordering, etc.
  • Some people were separating their WCAB “legacy” number to ADJ number searches by semi-colons, rather than commas.  I believe there’s really no sense in fighting users. 5  If a slightly different method makes sense to users, go with it.  I’ve adjusted the WCAB “legacy” number to ADJ number search function so that you can separate by semi-colons or commas.6
  • In printing out some Average Weekly Wage calculations, I discovered to my dismay that this website looked terrible when you tried to print it out.  Worse yet, the website header, sidebar, and other navigation information took up nearly a page.  This meant that a printout of a calculation might span two or more pages.  I’ve since fixed this using some particularly cool CSS.7
  1. Click this link see what the prior theme looked like. [↩]
  2. Photo courtesy of CharlesThompson [↩]
  3. Cool, no? [↩]
  4. A special thanks to Mr. Simon Elvery for writing this great footnote plugin. [↩]
  5. Unlike a certain “web-based” electronic adjudication management system… [↩]
  6. Or both! [↩]
  7. Well, my definition of cool, anyhow. [↩]
Oct
13
2008
Author, EAMS, Open Source, PDRater, PHP, Technobabble, Website Updates, Wordpress, Workers Compensation Resources

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New v5.0
New v5.0

First off, don’t be afraid, this is the same website you’ve come to know and love.  Change can be good!  Besides, this latest change is almost 100% cosmetic.

I have been meaning to change the entire look of PDRater.com for a while now.  Thus far I’ve been focusing on improving the workers’ compensation calculators and the website content.

Previously I showed the evolution of PDRater.com from a ridiculously ugly but useful website into a less ugly and more useful website.  Since these latest changes have been mostly cosmetic rather than functional, this should really be something like Version 4.647.  I figure with adding six new calculators in September and updating the look, I’ve earned the right to call this Version 5.0.

Besides, its my blog, right?

The last theme I used was based upon the fantastic WordPress Themer Kit, which is an incredible tool for people who either have little graphic design skill or who don’t want to build a new theme from scratch.  Ultimately, I just don’t have the skill, time, or inclination to build an aesthetically pleasing theme.  (But, let’s be real, its mostly the lack of skill thing).

That said, I am good at adjusting and incorporating.  The original Aeros theme looked significantly different than the one you see.  I’ve changed the background color, removed the slight transparency, highlighted the different sidebar sections, and moved the top menu to the left side.  Since the theme was open source, this mostly involved tinkering with the CSS and underlying PHP.

How do you like this new theme?  Shoot me an e-mail or leave me a comment.

Oct
9
2008
Open Source, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Wordpress

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I’ve already talked about how much I love using WordPress. Its easy to add new abilities to the program by uploading “plugins” into the program. Its also extremely easy to change the entire look of the website by uploading a new “theme.” Its basically as easy as swapping out a new faceplate for your phone.

I’ve already disclosed what a terrible designer I am. Its for this reason I’m looking for a new theme for this website. You know, something that isn’t a step-cousin to ugly. Take a look at the ones I’ve found.

Top Three Contenders

Since you’re here anyhow, you might want to look at the WordPress Themes page. Hundreds of free themes for every occassion. Just in case you’re a glutton for punishment, here’s a few more potential looks for this site.

Top Three Runners-Up

Let me know what you like and don’t like about them. While I’m no designer, I’m at least capable of chaning parts, combining parts, and putting in new graphics.

“Bonus” Material

These are some of the other themes I briefly considered. Some are just amusing.

  1. ParterProgram – Almost as good as Business-Style
  2. Nostalgia – GREAT menu system (which I may still use) but too monochrome
  3. Extend – A little too flashy for this site
  4. 8some – I’m just not a fan of left side menus or the layout
  5. Aspire – Good idea if this were a website in the Victorian era or it ran on steam-power
  6. Kitten – Everyone loves kittens!
  7. YAST – The theme is actually broken to begin with. Not a good sign.
  8. Company Website 001 – Another theme that just looks broken

Sep
30
2008
Author, Calculators, EAMS, Laptop, Not Workers Compensation, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources

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

September 2008 was a pretty good month for PDRater.com.  Yay! ((Original photo courtesy of Daniel Martini.  Mad photoshop skillz, all mine!))

Not so good for the economy. Boo! Perhaps this website needs a new, darker, tagline?  How about: “When you’ve lost everything else, you’ve still got PDRater.com”

Here’s my favorite posts from this past month.

I had the most fun with the “End of the World” posts from mid-September.  If you read nothing else, check out the one labeled, “The End of the World: A To Do List“.  That one is worth a look for my mad photoshop skillz alone.

For the more practical minded, the Road Warrior Checklists might be helpful.  I think I’ve got at least one more “Road Warrior Checklist” in me.  Also, I’ve provided some advice on what to do when your laptop stops working.

Six new calculators this month!

  1. Retroactive Benefits Calculator
  2. Convert WCAB and DWC “legacy” numbers into the new EAMS ADJ numbers
  3. Search with all EAMS registered Offices
  4. EAMS Body Part Codes search engine
  5. EAMS Document Type and Title search engine
  6. EAMS and DWC forms search engine

The World Ended on 9/10/2008

Laptop Repair Saga

Road Warrior Checklists

Virtual Real Estate (since the non-virtual kind is dead)