Dave Baker

I am very excited about an upgrade to the software that runs these message boards, which will be implemented over the weekend of December 31 to January 1, and will be fully functional by Monday, January 2. In part the upgrade is driven by the fact that the current version of the software has reached the end of its technical support life from the vendor, excerpt for security patches. Even those patches are scheduled to end in about three months. The new version of the software was first released in April of last year and has undergone a considerable number of tweaks, so I am now confident that it is fully functional and smooth. The primary benefit under the new version is a much more modern interface, with the kind of look and feel that most people have come to expect, especially on tablets and smartphones. The buttons are larger and more carefully positioned. The "help" system has been very much improved in its language and content. The new interface feels much more intuitive and user-friendly to me. It will be much easier to automatically follow certain content (particular topics/discussions, particular message boards), and the new version has a greatly expanded system for viewing "new" content and viewing particular kinds of activity (posts by particular members, activity in all topics you've started or contributed to, etc.). Upon logging in, an amazing amount of information will become available merely by hovering your mouse over various links, rather than needing to click on them. The search engine has more options available when doing an Advanced search, and seems to be faster and to provide results in a more scannable/readable format. And it cooks a perfectly boiled egg in less than 3 minutes. (Not.) I wish it were possible to install the upgraded version into a beta part of benefitslink.com in order to give you the ability to easily try it out before it goes fully live on January 2, but the conversion process is basically "stand back, fasten seat belts" once the process has begun. (I have tested the conversion on a development server, though. The development server must be behind a firewall in order to prevent Google from finding the content and royally gumming things up by indexing the temporary content on the upgraded version. The conversion went through without a hitch.) If you're comfortable with using an add-on to your browser or some other application that would let you modify the "HOSTS" file on your Windows PC so that the various links on the upgraded version running on the development server will work for you (i.e., not just the front page of the upgraded version), I'd be happy to provide you with the IP address of the development server to use in modifying your HOSTS file, and a username/password to get through a browser challenge screen on the development server. Just send me a private message using the message boards, or email me at davebaker@benefitslink.com.

So glad the message boards have been helpful to you, Bill. We have a great community and so much knowledge available for free. It's a great privilege to be able to attract and serve the industry's best and brightest! Hope you're have a great holiday.

http://benefitslink.com/links/20161025-131500.html

Yes, it was eBenefitsLink.com -- the fellow didn't see any conflict :-)

Thank you very much Tom and Belgrath! BenefitsLink has been successful only because talented professionals read it and use it. I think of this every time I see the subscriber stats to the newsletter or watch in happy amazement as sophisticated and important questions are posted to the message boards and then are answered by altruistic colleagues who contribute their time and talent towards helping out a peer. It is an awesome community, and I am just the geek who got the ball rolling back when the Interwebs were young. My wife, Lois, is an employee benefits attorney who has supercharged the operation of the newsletter especially, having jumped in with both feet when our son left the nest (she had been homeschooling him full-time). This operating simply wouldn't be what it is, but for her contributions and her encouragement to me. We've been married for almost 25 years, and it is no coincidence that BenefitsLink started under her watch and has prospered during that time. I remember well toting along a PC when we took family vacations, and dad would need to spend the morning on some dial-up connection putting together the newsletter. See http://benefitslink.com/newsletters for the archives, especially the ones from the mid-to-late 90s. Also fun is http://benefitslink.com/whatsnew/archive/ where you can find the web pages showing all of the new developments on the Internet -- one per month! For example, the DOL's Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration gets its own web page in October 1995, as does the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans -- http://benefitslink.com/whatsnew/archive/whatsnew.10.95.html -- the PBGC web site came online in March of 1996 -- http://benefitslink.com/whatsnew/archive/whatsnew.03.96.html -- then in September of 1996 we had to update the What's New page every week! Whew, an avalanche. It's not clear when the IRS web site came online, but it appears to have been some time in early 1995 or before. It wasn't very useful to employee benefits practitioners until later. It wasn't until September of 1995, for example, that one could find the actual text of revenue rulings and revenue procedures online, in the form of the Internal Revenue Bulletins, although I had to report that the "Only problem is they're in Adobe '.PDF' format; you need the freebie Adobe Acrobat viewer software to read them." -- http://benefitslink.com/whatsnew/archive/960915.html Unfortunately some of the links that were in the original What's New pages have been deleted -- at one time I was going through the pages and deleting any links that had gone bad. They would have been of interest looking back 20 years ago, but who knew they'd be looking back 20 years! I was only in my early 30's, and of course was immortal and would not be getting older older very soon. The birthday of the message boards appears to be September 8, 1996, so they're almost 20! Maybe we should think about how to celebrate that, coming up in less than 6 months! -- http://benefitslink.com/whatsnew/archive/960908.html Unfortunately the earliest message threads have been lost in the ether, probably due to changes that were made in the software over the years, when data migration was a much bigger deal. The first software came from a CGI/Perl book then available at many bookstores (though I didn't know it at the time); I remember shelling out $500 in 1996 dollars for a computer expert to install it for me and show how to use it! But I was so thrilled, and didn't think anything of it. Then I moved to vBulletin, then to the current IP Board by Invision Power Services. (BTW, IP Board has a new version available, which is much more user friendly and seems to have a good bit more in functionality -- I am playing with an installation on a beta server and will let you know when it's in a version that you could play with, to help determine whether it's worth the upgrade, not in monetary terms but in terms of needing to get used to some different interface. Or take a look now one of the vendor's message boards at https://invisionpower.com/forums/forum/481-product-feedback/ -- but I have recently found and am intrigued by a different vendor that provides a much simpler interface with searching features that may be as good or better -- it's called Discourse, and it's by the team that runs the very useful Stack Overflow board for software developers -- please take a look at http://try.discourse.org/ THANKS again for your notes, and THANKS so much for participating!

Haw! I love it, Tom. The .mid file is working fine for me (playing it with Windows Media Player).

I found this article to be interesting, funny and stimulating. Excerpt: Can you believe it? Plug “How to be Steve Jobs” or “Steve Jobs lessons” into Google and you’ll get page after page of tips. One trite homily after another explains how to imitate a few of the great dictator’s tics. Switch “Jobs” for “Ballmer” and you get almost nothing. I bet you could learn a lot from Steve Ballmer. More than you can learn from Jobs. You’re not like Jobs. Jobs was a handsome lustrous-haired genius who hooked up with another genius in his early 20s and formed a new, globally important (and immediately successful) company. Ballmer was a funny looking bald non-genius who joined a growing company as employee 30. Which is more like you? Jobs’ net worth at death was $10 billion. Ballmer today is worth $22 billion. He worked at Microsoft for 34 years solid. He wasn’t fired once. If you’re a non genius who hasn’t formed a globally important company in your early 20s — and especially if you’re funny looking — you’ll probably learn more from Ballmer than you can from Jobs.

The survey seems to have a great deal of information (180 tables) that looks to be useful and pertinent to plan administration/design, plus it's available essentially for free from the non-profit organization, so Lois and I thought it would be fit to post as a message to readers, though it's certainly something that is encouraging people to learn more about the organization (so I completely understand the concern about marketing on the boards, which is of course almost always out of bounds).

Hi gang, I have done a little rearranging and pruning of the message boards: * Moved all messages in BLAZE SSI message board and all messages in the the ASPPA C-1 through C-4 Courses message board into a new Continuing Professional Education message board, located in the Retirement Plans category. Deleted the separate category called Continuing Professional Education; deleted the separate Blaze SSI message board and ASPPA C-1 through C-4 Courses message board. * Moved the Nonqualified Deferred Compensation message board out of the Retirement Plans category and into the Employee Benefits in General category. * Renamed the Employee Benefits in General category to be Employee Benefits in General; Executive Compensation. (The Nonqualified Deferred Compensation message board seems happier in this category, where 409A Issues and Securities Law Aspects of Employee Benefit Plans have been and continue to be living.) * Added some "see also" verbiage to the descriptions of several message boards (Governmental Plans, IRAs and Roth IRAs, Distributions and Loads Other than QDROs), pointing the reader to related and sometimes more specific message boards. * Shortened some of the descriptions (for Relius Administration, ERPA). * Moved Retirement Plans in General to appear as the first message board in the Retirement Plans category rather than being down in the list of message boards (alphabetically). * Renamed the Global Benefits message board to be the International, Expat Benefits message board. If I've done anything that seems ill-advised or wrong, please let me know. Thanks very much for using the BenefitsLink message boards! Dave Baker Administrator

Yikes. Which search icon do you mean? The green square with the magnifying glass that's toward the top right corner of the screen next to a little gear icon?

Fixed -- thanks for waiting -- turned out to be kind of a big deal. Wed. May 6, 3:09 PM ET Dave

Still workin' on it ... sorry for this trouble!

7,234 newsletters through Friday, April 17. Over 120,000 items (official guidance, guidance overview, news, opinion). Whew! Thanks, Tom! Another fun fact: multiply 28,000 unique subscribers (who receive either the retirement plans newsletter or the health & welfare plans newsletter, or both) by an average of, say, 10 minutes reading one or the combination of them on a particular day; then multiply by the average billing rate of the reader (say, $100). The result is a bit less than half a million dollars worth of readers' time every day. Even if only half the subscribers open and read their newsletters, the number becomes a quarter-million dollars. We are honored by your readership!!!

After Anthem's security breach, they've become fodder for phishing attacks ("Members who may have been impacted by the cyber attack against us should be aware of scam email campaigns targeting current and former members. These scams, designed to capture personal information (known as “phishing”) are designed to appear as if they are from a health plan and the emails include a “click here” link for credit monitoring. These emails are NOT from us."). My day isn't looking to be turning out so bad, in comparison

Thank you very much!! Yes, the photo from 10 years ago makes me look 10 years younger :-)

Hot off the press: IR 2014-99 (Oct. 23, 2014) "The elective deferral (contribution) limit for employees who participate in 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, and the federal government's Thrift Savings Plan is increased from $17,500 to $18,000. The catch-up contribution limit for employees aged 50 and over ... is increased from $5,500 to $6,000. The limit on annual contributions to an [iRA] remains unchanged at $5,500.... [T]he limitation on the annual benefit under a defined benefit plan under Section 415(b)(1)(A) remains unchanged at $ 210,000.... The limitation for defined contribution plans under Section 415©(1)(A) is increased in 2015 from $52,000 to $53,000."

I use an amazing Microsoft trackball product that is no longer made; one must pay about a hundred bucks to get a used one.

Ballistol seems to be a competitor of WD-40. The two products seem to incite a bit of a holy war between users: http://www.bentrideronline.com/messageboard/showthread.php?t=86546 http://orschiro.blogspot.com/2013/05/ballistol-eco-friendly-wd-40-alternative.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistol

Yikes, I spelled it wrong in my initial post -- it's Ballistol, not Balliston. Details are on the manufacturer's site at http://www.ballistol.com/uses/

I bought a "multi-purpose" product called Ballistol [edited 8/18: was Balliston] Lube to make the squeak go away on my office door (circa 1920), and, in frustration one day after dealing with a sticky trackball that refused to move easily despite cleaning of the removable ball and the points where the ball contacted the case, I squirted a bit of Balliston on the trackball. Now the thing spins like a globe. Re-application is necessary from time to time. My workstation smells a little bit like a mechanic's garage, but the keyboard/mouse manipulator is happier.

Good article: http://www.gizmag.com/tech-maintenance-tasks/33176/

Thanks, Kevin! I did some poking around the web and discovered that Adobe Reader (the free version) does allow the searching of multiple PDFs at once, if they're in the same directory (or subdirectories thereof). It's working for me, though it's not lightning-fast. I never knew this before. After opening my Windows version of Adobe Reader, I select Edit, then Advanced Search, then "All PDF Documents In", then a directory in the drop-down list (e.g. My Documents). Cool!

Kevin, What's your web-based reference product? Also, do you have a tool for searching the .pdf files on your hard drive?

Andy, Maybe a solution is to put the 415-related document into the 415 folder but then use Windows (right-click on the document's icon) to make a "shortcut" to the document, and then put the shortcut into the cross-testing folder (etc.). Also, what search tools are you using for locating documents in Windows folders?

Back in the day, I had a file cabinet full of items that I had copied from pension periodicals, cases, rulings, etc. and then stuck into manila folders labeled by topic, then in alphabetic order in the file cabinets. What are you using today as the electronic equivalent, for web pages, emails, PDF documents, etc.? Evernote? OneNote? Another system?