Technobabble

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Jun
24
2009
2005 PDRS, Calculators, Ogilvie, Permanent Partial Disability, Technobabble, User Interface, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources

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PDRater workers compensation calculators - so easy a cat can use them!
PDRater workers' compensation calculators - so easy your cat can use them!

What’s that?  You haven’t memorized ALL of the FEC ranks to go with each of the 2005 Permanent Disability Rating Schedule body parts? 1

Why didn’t you say so?   (Actually, someone did ask for an easy way to look up the FEC ranks back on April 1).

I’ve been working on an easy way to allow a user to look up and quickly insert the FEC rank for the affected body part.  I finally got around to building it a few days ago and launched it this morning.  Please give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Here’s all you need to do to perform your very own Ogilvie calculation:

  1. Go to the permanent disability calculator page. (If you haven’t already signed up for free, this is a good time.)
  2. Click “Ogilvie” Diminished Future Earning Capacity Calculator “
  3. Type in the FEC rank OR click “FEC Rank (1-8)” and click on the injured body part.  It will look up the FEC rank and insert it for you.
  4. Type in the “Whole Person Impairment”
  5. Type in the “Post Injury Earnings of Applicant”
  6. Type in the “Post Injury Earnings of Similarly Situated Employees” OR click the link to obtain some information from the EDD Labor Market Information Division (LMID) and US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

If you can think of a way for me to make this calculator even easier, please let me know. 2

  1. You’ve only had four years, right? [↩]
  2. Photo courtesy of Vicki’s Pics [↩]
Jun
23
2009
Business, Free, Open Source, OpenOffice, PDRater, Technobabble, Workers Compensation Resources

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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.1  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.23

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

  1. Photo courtesy of Krug6 [↩]
  2. Not that EAMS will share with you. [↩]
  3. Don’t take it personally – EAMS pretty much hates everyone. [↩]
Jun
16
2009
Blogging, Free, Marketing, PDRater, Search Engine Ranking, SEO, Technobabble

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love
Permanent disability calculators only a workers' compensation nerd could love

And, really, what’s not to love about free permanent disability calculators?12

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?3

Search engine optimization, like fortune,  is a fickle creature.45

  1. Photo courtesy of aWee [↩]
  2. That’s a picture of an accounting sheet! [↩]
  3. Hint: the website’s name rhymes with “PDRater“ [↩]
  4. This post has been brought to you by O Fortuna and the Rubaiyat. [↩]
  5. Look at me, waxing all philosophical! [↩]
Jun
14
2009
Laptop, PDRater, Technobabble

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New Laptop
New Laptop

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 1 , screen size, or keyboard size you probably want a netbook.  It will probably run you between $300 – $500.2

If cost-be-damned you just must have absolutely everything, well, then get yourself a high end laptop.3  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.

  1. DVD/CD drives [↩]
  2. Photo courtesy of Ciccio Pizzettaro [↩]
  3. Scroll to the bottom for my pic k. [↩]
Jun
12
2009
Not Workers Compensation, Open Source, PDRater, Website Updates, Wordpress

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Wordpress Upgrade
Wordpress Upgrade

Last night I updated this website to use WordPress v2.8.  There’s a lot of new features under the hood.  One that I really like is the ability to browse new website themes.

The calculators should all be completely impervious to changes in WordPress.  However, its theoretically possible you might notice a little bit of weirdness in how the rest of the website looks/acts.  If so, please drop me a line and let me know so I can look into it.

Enjoy!

Jun
9
2009
Author, Blogging, Marketing, Not Workers Compensation, Technobabble

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We can

It turns out that this website is actually in the top 5% of all blogs in the WORLD.  Where did I get this incredible statistic?  The Internets, of course.1

While there are some 133,000,000 blogs in the world, all but 7,400,000 of them have been abandoned. 2  Since I add a blog post on average at least once a week, I’m quite safely in the top 7.4 million blogs.  That doesn’t even count the number of updates to the permanent impairment and permanent disability calculators.

Top 5%!  I wish I had prepared a speech.

  1. Photo courtesy of Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com [↩]
  2. Apparently not updating a blog in four months is considered abandoning it. [↩]
Jun
7
2009
AJAX, Calculators, Cell Phones, EAMS, Free, Javascript, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources

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Up, dates!
Up, dates!

Unfortunately, one of the coolest features of my calculators is that some of them will give you the answer you’re looking for before you’ve even finished typing the search term.  This works with the:

While these are all very cool while you’re sitting at your computer, I found out (much to my dismay) that this system didn’t work at all when using these online calculators from my cell phone! 1 Well, I’ve updated the calculators to make them more compatible with more phones.2

Save yourself from your own workers’ compensation claim and just leave that heavy rating manual at home.

  1. It has to do with cross-browser compatibility and inconsistent support for javascript events.  I doubt anyone is interested in this. [↩]
  2. Photo courtesy of Hunda [↩]
Jun
6
2009
Not Workers Compensation, Technobabble

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What has the world come to when Bill Gates is sending spam?
What has the world come to when Bill Gates is sending spam?

A few days ago I posted about how to prevent spam.  That method works in most instances by allowing you to give out fake e-mail addresses.  It also works most of the time against the shadier kinds of people/entities sending out spam.

However, few methods will work that spam is coming from a legitimate source.  A few days ago I received spam about “Bing.”  This is a new MicroSoft search engine, intended to be a competitor to Google.  I’m using the term “competitor” loosely here.  This spam e-mail was from “communications@communications3.msn.com”1

A recent blog post on BoingBoing.net summed up MicroSoft woes.  The “I’m a PC” ads are just not as compelling as the “Mac ads” with Justin Long.  The Zune is a poor shadow of the iPod/iPhone.  Hell, Windows Vista can’t compete with Windows XP.  On top of it all, the recent public interest in cheap laptops/netbooks has made Linux an actual competitor in the marketplace.

But, stooping to spamming?  Can I really expect to be receiving e-mails about MicroSoft along with Nigerian investment oportunities, hot young singles in my area, and erectile dysfunction medication?

  1. Photo courtesy of Annie Mole [↩]
Jun
5
2009
Cell Phones, Free, Ogilvie, PDRater, Technobabble, Workers Compensation Resources

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Riddle me this!
Riddle me this!

Yesterday afternoon in Fresno I showed another attorney how I could perform an Ogilvie calculation on my cell phone using the best workers’ compensation calculator website in the world.

  • He looked at me and asked me, “How much does this cost?”
  • I answered, “They’re free.”
  • He asked me, “Well, why the heck am I paying for _______?”1

I don’t know.2

  1. Oh, YOU know who he was talking about… [↩]
  2. Photo courtesy of Santheo [↩]
May
27
2009
Not Workers Compensation, Technobabble

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SPAM so fresh, you can eat it as sushi!
SPAM so fresh, you can eat it as sushi!

Several months ago I listed several obvious and non-obvious benefits to owning your own domain name. 1  One of the less than obvious benefits was a way to avoid and stop spam.  Two easy ways to do this are to:

  • Set up a default e-mail address  to collect all the misaddressed mail.  Then, if you have to sign up for something or give out a valid e-mail address, you just make up an e-mail address at your domain.  It will go to your server and then be directed to your “catch-all” address.  If the made-up address includes the name of the place you gave your e-mail address to, then you know the source of your spam.  This is easy to fix by just creating a filter at the server for that one address.
  • You can also create an address just for the purposes of giving out to sites/people you think will send you spam.  If you get too much, just delete the account.

In just the last two months I’ve been getting spam about:

  • Why celebrities love the acai berry
  • Free life insurance quotes
  • Discount ink and toner
  • Protecting my family against financial hardship

A while ago I sent an e-card to a friend of mine.  EVER since then I’ve been getting these spam e-mails to that address.  How do I know these e-mails are from that e-card website?

All of these spam e-mails are being sent to:  happy.birthday.from.me@pdrater.com !

  1. Photo courtesy of chotda [↩]