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:
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.
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.
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.)
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:
Its open source, so its completely free. So, there’s no reason not to give it a shot.
It can open, edit, and save to any MS Office 2000, 2003, 2007, and WordPerfect formats.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
The latest version is 2.6.3 which is just version 2.6.2 with a small but important security fix. [↩]
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.
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.3456 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.”
I wonder if I should try to put it on the ballot as a proposition… [↩]
Second best Ben Franklin quote: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper.” [↩]
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? :/ [↩]
I say this only half-jokingly. Years ago I had someone make this exact argument to me. Ken, I’m looking at you. [↩]
This assumes an arithmatic progression of benefits and costs associated with daylight savings time. [↩]
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? [↩]
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 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.
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
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.
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
