WordPress Upgrade

Since updating this website to WordPress v2.8 in the middle of June they’ve released two additional security updates.  Unfortunately, the latest update also required a little extra tinkering and work on my part.  I look on constant security fixes for this fantastic (free!) open source software as a small price to pay for increased security.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled rating…

goodmorningohmanishouldreallywritesomenewstuffforthiswebsite!!!

Some days I’m inspired to develop new things for this website.  Here’s a few things I did this morning:[1]

• Added a guest article
• Wrote a new plugin to handle the disclaimers on guest articles
• Added several features to the plugin that displays the related posts
• Edited the theme for this website
• Added a little search engine optimization magic to the site
• Added to and edited the “About” page
• Put together a database of the various WCAB district offices so that I can continue my series of posts providing photos, contact information, and driving directions to each office

1. Photo courtesy of lepiaf.geo

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!

Getting an upgrade!

Late last week a user asked for a new feature.[1]  He wanted to be able to perform the Ogilvie DFEC rebuttal calculation and have the results e-mailed to him.[2] Well, I built it![3]

To e-mail yourself a calculation, perform the calculation as normal.  When the website returns your calculation, it will say “E-mail Me!“  Just click that button and it will send an e-mail to the address you used to register for this website.

However, here’s the cool part:  I’ve installed this new e-mail system into every calculator! [4] No more having to copy and paste!  Just click one button and your calculation will show up in your inbox![5]

Although I intend this to be a paid-subscription-only feature, I am going to leave it open for all users while I get some feedback.  So, what do you think?  Please leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail!

1. Thanks Dennis!
2. Photo courtesy of Vernhart
3. Why, what did you do with your Saturday morning?
4. I haven’t installed it in some of the EAMS lookup functions
5. If you filled in the boxes for Applicant, WCAB #, and File #, it will include this information in your e-mail as well.  This is only for your convenience and not a requirement.

Wordpress

A friend of mine owns and operates a number of websites – all of which run on ASP/.NET/MS-SQL servers.  He knows what he’s talking about, but he’s fairly dismissive of WordPress, PHP, and MySQL.

All this time I’ve been raving about WordPress, telling him that you can basically do anything with it.  I’ve mentioned how easy it is to use, how easy it is to maintain, its open source, how many global corporations use WordPress to build their websites, how its the tool of choice for so many designers, and how huge the WordPress community is.

In the meantime, he’s referring to his millions of rows in his “real-SQL, MicroSoft SQL” database.  I believe he’s been stuck thinking of PHP and MySQL as “kiddie” stuff, just not ready for big time.

That is, he’s been dismissive of WordPress until about two months ago.  In the last two months other people (SEO consultants, professional designers) have been raving about WordPress to him too.

I think he’s finally coming around.

Refresh for updates

In no particular order:[1]

• I often refer to myself as a Workers’ Compensation nerd.  The other day I realized that would be a GREAT website name!  Unfortunately, WCNerd.com is already taken by “white collar nerd.”  Bummer, no?  What a great e-mail address that would have been, too!
• With well over a 100 posts and counting I thought it was time to include a “tag cloud.”  Its on the bottom of the right sidebar of this website.  Its basically a grouping of the common words I use to tag various posts.  The more common a word is the larger it appears.  The top contenders are pretty telling
  • PDRater
  • Technobabble
  • Website Updates
  • Workers Compensation
  • Calculators
  • Free
• To help with the website navigation and use of the “tag cloud” I’ve started being more liberal with how I tag my various posts.  Its actually kinda fun.
• I’m  using a new e-mail contact form.  I was using “Contact Form 7,” which has a truly impressive feature list. While effective, I didn’t much care for this plugin because of its complexity.  What I really wanted was a quick and easy way for website visitors to send me e-mail.  Recently I found “Tiny Contact Form” by Tom Braider to be exactly what I needed.  It is small, simple to configure, and easy to include.  I’m actually using a modified version of the really fantastic “Tiny Contact Form” plugin.  I’m rather proud of my modification on this plugin and even sent Tom Braider my changes which he ended up incorporating into the next version!
• Google recently swallowed up Feedburner.  I was using Feedburner to manage the RSS feeds for this website.  The only problem was that it was causing all kinds of problems.  My RSS reader wasn’t picking up the new posts from my own blog!  So, I scrapped the Feedburner management of my RSS feed and went back to the native WordPress support for RSS (which is pretty damn good).

1. Photo courtesy of RandomChu

Wordpress Upgrade

I upgraded to WordPress v2.7.1 as soon as it came out (after testing on another website, of course).  I can honestly say WordPress is the only software I use that I actually look forward to upgrading.

Since version 2.7 RC 1, upgrading to the next version of WordPress has been this easy:

How to Upgrade WordPress

You click “Upgrade Automatically” and wait about 5 seconds.

You’re done.

Not entirely off topic: a friend of mine asked me yesterday about the best way to put up a new website.  She had thought about using Yahoo Site Builder or some such.  Yahoo and its like are great at building free, quick, and ugly websites.  If you’re going to publish on the internets, why not just opt for something just as easy and that has hundreds, if not thousands of possible totally free themes to choose from?  I say, go with WordPress.

I used to code sites by hand – that’s a chump’s game.  Just install WordPress and call it a day.

Wordpress

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 2.6.4[1].  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:

1. Monitor for Updates. Many programs these days automatically check to see if new versions are available.  If the program does not have this feature[2] , its a good idea to check about once a month or so.
2. 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.
3. 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.

1. The latest version is 2.6.3 which is just version 2.6.2 with a small but important security fix.
2. Or if you turn it off, as I sometimes do.

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. [6][7][8]

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.”

Fixing things

Changing the website’s theme has involved a few small tweaks[2] :

• 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.

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.

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

• “Aeros”
  • Pros: Rounded corners and clean looking layout.
  • Cons: I’m not sold on the dark colors or small font in the sidebar showing the menu.
  • Aeros, front page
  • Aeros, calculator page
• “Magicblue”
  • Pros: Clean, straight forward layout, not too many distractions.
  • Cons: The graphic at the top is okay. I’d probably replace it with something else.
  • Magicblue, front page
  • Magicblue, calculator page
• “Business-Style”
  • Pros: This really does look like a business website. Good layout, each section of the sidebar is set apart.
  • Cons: Too monochrome and not enough contrast?
  • Business-Style, front page
  • Business-Style, calculator page

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

• “Blueberry”
  • Pros: Simple straight forward layout, pleasing color scheme.
  • Cons: Too similar to the current theme?
  • Blueberry, front page
  • Blueberry, calculator page
• “Quickpress”
  • Pros: Simple straightforward layout.
  • Cons: Too blocky and clunky?
  • Quickpress, front page
  • Quickpress, calculator page
• “Blueshadow”
  • Pros: Another straighforward layout.
  • Cons: Theme looks a little cluttered and somewhat like a news blog to me.
  • Blueshadow, front page
  • Blueshadow, calculator page

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