Mitchell to Acquire Fair Isaac's Workers' Comp Medical Cost Business

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Claims management and information firm Mitchell International, Inc. reports it has agreed to acquire the workers compensation medical cost containment and bill review business of Fair Isaac Corp.

Mitchell currently supplies the property and casualty claims and auto collision repair industries with information, workflow and management services. This acqusition will allow the company to expand into workers' compensation claims arena.



Alex Sun, president and CEO of Mitchell, said he sees an opportunity to unite the "collective expertise of our auto and workers compensation teams..."

Fair Isaac offers consulting, analytics and software to help businesses make decisions. Fair Isaac also runs the consumer credit scoring Web site, www.myFICO.com.


Sources:
Mitchell International
Fair Isaac

Here's how the housing slump can work to a first-time home buyer's advantage

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Note to young renters: It's a very good time to start thinking about buying your first house.
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Sure, the housing market is in the dumper, and houses are still expensive - up almost a third from their prices at the start of the decade, with some markets considerably higher than that. Throw in reports of killer mortgages and rampant foreclosures, and it may seem scary to take the leap. But over the long term, owning your home is a great investment. It's one that will bring you tax breaks, financial gains, perhaps a little yard, and considerable joy . . . if it's done right.

Right now, the housing glut means sellers are motivated and prices are falling. The latest stimulus bill out of Washington raised the limits on decent, low-down-payment, government-guaranteed mortgages. Parents who may be inclined to help their kids with a down payment don't have great places to stash their money right now, with stocks and bonds both looking risky and unrewarding. And mortgage rates are low.

Here's how to get started.
# There's no need to rush, suggests Walt Molony of the National Association of Realtors. Nobody, not even the usually optimistic agents' group, is predicting increasing prices. You've got many months to educate yourself about the process and study your market.

# Check your credit score at myfico.com. If you're planning a house hunt, it makes sense to buy a full credit score report. The higher your score, the lower your interest rate on your mortgage, and that can mean hundreds of dollars a month in savings, for decades. A top score now can get you a 30-year fixed rate loan under 6 percent that will cost you around $1,775 a month to borrow $300,000. If your score is middling, that same loan can go for 7.192 and cost you $2,035 a month. A poor score can mean that you'll only qualify for a 10.25 percent loan that will cost you $2,688 a month. If your score is less than optimum, you can improve it by paying down credit card balances and making sure you always pay bills on time.

# Prequalify for a mortgage. Comparison shop online and call a reputable mortgage bank near you. Find out how much you can reasonably borrow, and what kind of rate you'll get. If you're serious about buying a home soon, you can go the distance and actually apply for the mortgage before you find the house. Then you'll have a good idea of your price range.

# Check out mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Authority. These are solid 30-year fixed loans, not those crazy interest only, negative amortization, resetting variable loans that caused so much trouble. They only require a 3 percent down payment. Depending on the prices in your local market, you can borrow as much as $729,750 on one of these loans with FHA backing.

# Work with a buyer's agent who only represents you, not the seller. Neophytes especially need someone who can help them analyze the local market, negotiate a good price, and close the deal. You can find an agent through the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents at naeba.org.

# Get something back from the seller, but don't expect a complete steal. Houses still cost a lot of money, but a motivated buyer might give you help where you need it most: with cash. A motivated seller might agree to pay closing costs out of his profits, suggests Molony. That could give you the advantage of being able to come up with less cash to get into the house.

# Think single-family house or duplex. A duplex makes for a great starter home: You can live in half and rent out the other half. Single-family houses also do well in most markets over the long term. Condominiums and co-ops: not so much. While luxury condos in popular locations have sold well, they tend to not perform as well in resale as do single-family homes. And there are condo fees to contend with, too.

# Don't buy a home without getting a home inspection. You wouldn't be the first newbie to buy a house and then discover the leaky roof, wet basement, termite damage, and antiquated electrical system. Put an inspection in your contract. If the inspector finds big, bad, problems, you can use them to negotiate a lower price or extricate yourself from a troubling deal.

# Don't overreach. It's not the time to get the biggest, baddest house you can find. There will be another time for upgrading down the road.

Linda Stern is a freelance columnist. She can be reached at lindastern@aol.com.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

He saves a late-night seat for regular Joes

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The best thing about Jimmy Kimmel may be the fact that Sarah Silverman is his girlfriend, that the Great Jewish American Princess of Taboo finds enough inside Kimmel's narcoleptic head to love. Or maybe the best thing about the talk-show host is the fact that he's a massive "Lost" fan, one who developed a catch phrase for Hurley ("Hey ladies, it's Hurley time") and gave us the Broadway stylings and jazz hands of "Lost: The Musical."
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But as Kimmel celebrates his 1,000th "Jimmy Kimmel Live" with a 90-minute special tonight at 11:35 on Channel 5, it's clear he also has something valuable of his own, something intrinsic to his schlubby self. In 2003, in his post-Super Bowl premiere, Kimmel announced, "Welcome to 'Enjoy It While It Lasts,' my new talk show," aware that the likes of Magic Johnson and Martin Short had bombed before him.

The odds were against a Kimmel late-night break, and yet here he is five years later, despite his serious dearth of star quality. He's as unlikely a success as "Knocked Up" star Seth Rogen, and similarly lacking in the metrosexual finish that trails most Hollywood men.

Silverman perfectly defined Kimmel's demagnetism when she introduced him at a 2001 Friars' Club roast of Hugh Hefner: "Jimmy Kimmel, everyone - he's fat and has no charisma. Watch your back, Danny Aiello!"

That Kimmel has no pressing talents, no whiz-boy needle-sharp irony, has turned out to be his ace in the hole. He stands out on late-night TV for being so blandly ordinary. He's never too smart for the room. At 40, he already has the mien of an old-school TV veteran, a friendly guy in a tie and jacket who's kind of stiff around the shoulders but comfortable with guests.

Unlike Conan O'Brien and Dave Letterman, Kimmel doesn't have that clever ability to make his interviews about his own comic sensibility. He's a listener. And unlike Jay Leno, he doesn't strain, stretch, and squeal for effect. He's sedate - the opposite of a live-action cartoon.

When Lance Bass appeared with Kimmel in February to promote his memoir about coming out, Kimmel didn't have the big thought balloon you'd have seen above Leno's or Letterman's head: "I don't get this crazy stuff." He conducted the interview without waiting to pounce - he was curious about the double life of a gay teenybopper hero, then brought out one big Conan-esque flourish as he showed his own People magazine cover reading "I'm Gay Too!"

Kimmel clearly gets a kick out of playing gay, most recently in his Ben Affleck video, but he doesn't seem to be pandering to homophobia so much as poking holes in political correctness. If there is hatred behind his gay jokes, I'd say he's hiding it pretty well.

To use a Yiddish word, Kimmel is a bit of a tummler. He's the conventional social director who surrounds himself with gaudier characters, like Howard Stern surrounds himself with the Wack Pack. He busies his show with reality segments about his more colorful security guards and family members such as his Uncle Frank and Frank's ex-wife, Aunt Chippy. If Kimmel himself were wittier, shrewder, edgier, he'd be less palatable to young middle America, which is the demographic ABC is targeting. He projects an everyman persona no matter what's going on nearby, even when you can see mockery playing around his eyes and he lets out a Letterman-esque ironic groan.
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Unlike Silverman, Kimmel is not passionate about being a provocateur. His regular feature "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship" - bleeping out harmless words and gestures on film clips to make them seem obscene - is a send-up of the FCC and Parents Television Council-like organizations, but Kimmel never plays it as intellectual subversion. He's just fooling around, YouTube-like, not trying to push cultural buttons or tease conservatives as on "The Daily Show." He's stubbornly middle of the road, even when his material has the potential to be spiky.

The Matt Damon-Ben Affleck video throw-down between Kimmel and Silverman has given Kimmel a huge boost, bringing him more press and more viral cred than he had even after featuring interviews with "Tron"-obsessed guy Jay Maynard and the first-ever live performance of YouTube sensation "Chocolate Rain." But, of course, Kimmel's standing as the average Joe means that his Affleck video had to be sloppier than hers. Silverman's Damon clip was sharply written and sustained; Kimmel's retaliation was jumpy rehash - a decades-old "We Are the World" spoof.

Kimmel has been growing into his hosting duties since 2003, as he moves away from the more sexist material of "The Man Show," with its drinking songs and women on trampolines. He has mellowed enough to have filled in effortlessly for Larry King and Regis Philbin. He's not the frat boy at a kegger anymore, so much as the dude who has the potential to become the underdog of late night.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.

Disassemble Nokia 1100

When disassemble any phone, great care should be taken to ensure that no damage is caused to any of the parts. Rough handling may result in severe damage of many parts, and if proper anti-static procedures are not followed, electrostatic damage may result in any electronic component.

Before commencing, it is recommended that the correct tools are purchased for the job in hand - at the very least, you will require a Torx T6 screwdriver.

Step 1. Protect display with a film to prevent damage.



Step 2. Press the release button (1) and remove the battery cover in the direction indicated by (2).



Step 3. Remove fascia, starting at the bottom.



Step 4. Remove keymat from fascia.




Step 5. Using a Torx T6, remove the six screws in the order indicated below.



Step 6. With the six Torx screws removed, you can simply lift out the c-cover.



Step 7. Unlock the LCD clips on both sides of the display.



Step 8. You can now remove the LCD screen and light-guide.



Step 9. Use tweezers or similar to remove the speaker.



Step 10. The main circuit board can be simply lifted away from the chassis of the phone.



Step 11. The shielding can be simply levered out by starting at the top of the handset.



Step 12. The main system connector can be tight (but usually isn't), so you may need a thin plastic shim to remove it.


Step 13. To remove the microphone from the system connector, simply push it out of it's housing.



Step 14. The vibra-motor can be simply lifted out of the chassis.



Step 15. Remove the buzzer unit taking extra care not to damage the sprung contacts.



Step 17. And that should be your phone disassembled. Reassembly is a simple reversal of the above steps taking care to fully test the handset to ensure that you have not caused any damage or missed any steps.

How to check your Firmware Version

To check ur firmware version key *#0000# in standby screen.

1100 RH-18 8.11 6670 RH-67 7.0642.0
1101 RH-75 5.04 6680 RM-36 4.04.07 (mtn) / 5.04.40
1110 RH-70 5.53 6681 RM-57 6.09.00
1110i RH-93 6.40 6800 NHL-6 5.46
1112 RH-93 6.40 6810 RM-2 5.29
1112 RH-94 3.11 6820 NHL-9 5.30
1600 RH-64 6.40 6822 RM-69 5.21
2100 NAM-2 5.84 7110 NSE-5 5.01
2300 RM-4 8.11 7200 RH-23 04.30
2310 RM-189 5.90 7210 NHL-4 5.63
2600 RH-59 6.42 7250 NHL-4J 3.62
2610 RH-86 4.90 7250i NHL-4JX G5.41
2626 RM-291 4.61 7260 RM-17 5.90
2650/2652 RH-53 6.19 7270 RM-8 3.25
3100/3120 RH-19 6.31 7280 RM-14 3.27
3110 Classic RM-237 4.91 7360 RM-127 5.20
3200 RH-30 5.34 7370 RM-70 4.13
3210 NSE-8 6.00 7373 RM-209 4.70
3220 RH-37 5.90 7380 RM-111 3.80
3230 RM-51 5.0625.0 7390 RM-140 4.51
3250 RM-38 4.21 7600 NMM-3 4.03
3300 NEM-1 4.62 7610 RH-51 7.0642.0
3310 NHM-5 06.39 7650 NHL-2 5.06
3330 NHM-6 04.50 7710 RM-12 4.10.0
3410 NHM-2 05.46 8110 NSE-6 6.02
3510 NHM-8 5.02 8210 NSM-3 5.31
3510i RH-9 05.35 8310 NHM-7 6.20
3650 NHL-8 4.17 8800 RM-13 4.17
3660 NHL-8 5.08 8800 SE RM-165 4.10
5100 NPM-6 5.20 8850 NSM-2 5.31
5110 NSE-1 5.30 8890 NSB-6 12.20
5130 NSK-1 05.71 & 5.71 8910 NHM-4 4.03
5140 NPL-5 3.17 8910i NHM-4NX 5.31
5140i RM-104 4.91 9110 RAE-2 PDA 6.08
5200 RM-174 5.00 9110 RAE-2 CMT 5.06
5210 NSM-5 5.40 9110i RAE-2 PDA 7.04
5300 RM-146 5.00 9110i RAE-2 CMT 6.01
5500 RM-86 4.40 9210 RAE-3 4.13
5510 NPM-5 3.53 9210i RAE-5 6.00
5700 RM-230 3.27 9300 RAE-6 06.27 (0)
6020 RM-30 5.22 9300i RA-8 6.27
6021 RM-94 5.22 9500 RA-2 6.27
6030 RM-74 5.40 E50 (-1) RM-170 07.13.0.0
6060 RH-73 5.11 E50 (-2) RM-171 07.13.0.0
6060 RH-97 3.03 E60 RM-49 3.0633.09.04
6070/6080/5070 RM-166 4.20 E61 RM-89 3.0633.09.04
6085 RM-198 5.02 E61i RM-227 1.0633.22.05
6086 RM-188 3.52 E62 RM-88 2.0618.06.17
6090 NME-3 5.300 E65 RM-208 1.0633.18.01
610 TFE-4 5.16 E70 RM-10 2.0618.07.10
616 RV-1 4.47 E90 RA-6 07.24.0.3
6100 NPL-2 6.31 N70 RM-84 5.0705.3.0.1
6101/6102 RM-76 5.22 N71 RM-67 4.0642.1.05
6103 RM-161 5.22 N72 RM-180 5.0706.4.0.1
6110 Navigator RM-122 3.51 N73 (-1) RM-133 3.0713.1.0.2
6111 RM-82 3.82 N73 (Music Edition) RM-133 3.0638.0.0.3
6120 Classic RM-243 3.90 N76 RM-135 10.0.035
6125 RM-178 5.43 N77 RM-194 2.0720.1.0.1
6130 NSK-3 05.61 & 5.61 N80 RM-92 5.07.19
6131 RM-115 6.10 N90 RM-42 5.0607.7.3
6136 RM-199 05.21 & 15.21 N91 (-1) [4Gb] RM-43 2.20.008
6150 NSM-1 5.23 N91 (-2) [8Gb] RM-43 3.10.023
6151 RM-200 4.10 N93 RM-55 20.0.058
6170 RM-47 3.26 N93i RM-156 20.0.084
6210 NPE-3 5.56 N95 RM-159 10.0.018 / 11.0.026
6220 RH-20 6.34 810 TFE-4R 4.78
6230 RH-12 5.50 Cardphone 2 RPM-1 6.11
6230i RM-72 3.89 D211 DTE-1 04.01
6233 RM-145 5.43 N-Gage NEM-4 4.03
6234 RM-123 5.43 N-Gage QD RH-29 4.10
6250 NHM-3 5.03 Nokia 12 RX-2 4.15
6260 RM-25 5.0536.0 Nokia 12i RX-2 5.11
6270 RM-56 3.90 Nokia 22 TME-1 5.01 & 5.03
6280/6288 RM-78 06.43 Nokia 30 TME-3 09.10
6290 RM-176 3.03 Nokia 32 DTX-3 5.08
6300 RM-217 5.00 Nokia 770 SU-18 3.2006.49-2
6310 NPE-4 5.10 Nokia 800 RX-34 3.2007.10.7
6310i NPL-1 7.00 PD-1 3.24 latin/e /r
6510 NPM-9 4.12 PT-2 05.10
6600 NHL-10 5.27.0 & 5.53.0 PT-6 4.2
6610 NHL-4U 5.65
6610i RM-37 4.40
6630 RM-1 6.0503.08
6650 NHM-1 05.40
N70 V 5.0705.3.0.1 | 30-01-07 | RM-84
E61 3.0633.09.04 | 20-11-06 | RM-89

The latest firmware for the Nokia 5300 is V5.51 Changes and Additions **New icons in the call log menu **Switching from general to silent profile using the # key is now working **Onboard loudspeaker now sounds better - noticeable especially on rock songs **New music player icons **Music file tags in the music player are now displaying correctly aacPlus playback is much clearer and louder

Dolly Parton on ‘American Idol’ tonight and Wednesday

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At age 62, the Dorian Gray of mudflap girls is as ambitious in the studio as she is under the knife. Refusing to fade into graceful grandma-hood, Dolly Parton is hellbent on returning to the top of the charts with “Backwoods Barbie,” an album calibrated to capitalize on the country-pop crossover.

Her girlish vibralto intact, Parton storms through a dozen songs, proving that where it counts, she’s still got it. When Carrie Underwood let Jesus take the wheel of her career, it was the smartest thing she (and her producers and handlers) could’ve done. The lesson’s not lost on Parton, whose Pentecostal upbringing pays dividends on the album’s second single, “Jesus and Gravity.”

The first single, “Better Get To Livin’,” a sappy inspirational song that melds every self-help cliché, fared poorly. Much better is Parton’s unlikely but appealing cover of Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy.” The bulk of the song, arranged as a fiddle-heavy pop song, hews close to the original until the finale, when it crescendos in a rollicking hoedown. It might blow your mind, but the real charmer is the album’s title track. It’s vintage Dolly: playing up her impoverished roots, making fun of her over-the-top-persona and charming a skeptical audience that may not know or care about her classic hits.

I’m just a backwoods Barbie, too much makeup, too much hair.
Don’t be fooled by thinkin’ that the goods are not all there.
Don’t let these false eyelashes lead you to believe
That I’m as shallow as I look, ’cause I run true and deep.

Say what you will about her faith in plastic surgery. There may be no less forgiving measure of aging than the pop charts, and Parton knows it. Tonight, her campaign to win the hearts and minds of American consumers goes into overdrive with a two-night stint on “American Idol.” (Rumors abound that Carly Smithson will sing “Jolene” and Jason Castro will take on “I Will Always Love You.”) Forget the 9 to 5 office set, Parton’s got her sight on her key demographic — the tween girl set, who should relate perfectly to her empowerment through loud and proud femininity.

–Elina Shatkin

Photo by FOX