Die onbepaalde lidwoord op Facebook (ʼn, UTF-16: 0x0149)

Die gewoonte van lomp woordverwerkers uit Redmond om die Afrikaanse onbepaalde lidwoord tot die foutiewe en lelike misbaksel ‘n te omvorm, is 'n hinderlike deel van 'n mens se alledaagse leeservaring. Op Nuus24.com kan 'n mens vanoggend sommer drie variante van die lidwoord ('n, ‘n asook ’n) heel naby aan mekaar sien.

Ou Afrikaanse tikmasjiene het blykbaar 'n aparte sleutel gehad vir die lidwoord en die moderne Unicode-standaard vir die voorstelling van karakters op rekenaars bevat dan ook 'n enkele simbool vir die Afrikaanse onbepaalde lidwoord, die ʼn. Laasgenoemde is 'n enkele karakter, soos die Griekse λ, en nie twee opeenvolgende karakters, soos die bogenoemde drie van News24, nie en het die UTF-16-kode 0x0149. Die gebruik van ʼn (0x0149) sou die misvormde lidwoord kon uitskakel en word, tot my matige verbasing, wel deur Facebook gebruik.

Die Kanadese veeltalige sleutelborduitleg ondersteun dan ook dié karakter deur dit as AltGr-N (die regterkantste Alt-sleutel word ingehou onderwyl N gedruk word) beskikbaar te maak. Die maklikste manier om die misvormde lidwoord uit te skakel, is egter om die woordverwerker se autokorrigeer-opsies heeltemal af te skakel. Indien dít te moeilik is vir mense wat in Afrikaans skryf, wat van die Kanadese sleutelborduitleg?


Verwysings

Using AutoCorrect http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOoAuthors_User_Manual/Writer_Guide/Using_AutoCorrect (vir OpenOffice)
Turn on or off AutoCorrect options http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/hp051894301033.aspx (vir MS-Word)

Notice to accompany offline archive files

My personal archives (documents, photographs, e-mail etc.) now comprise three DL discs and I want to place a few copies with friends and family and had been wondering how to properly indemnify them and protect myself. The solution I chose was to wrap it all up in a huge file which is weakly encrypted. This means that if one of the discs is popped into a computer, you won't immediately be able to open anything. In addition, I included the following notice on each discs and on the inside and outside of the envelope in which I seal the discs. Perhaps I am overly cautious, but I think that we should start thinking about our digital legacy!

Personal Archive ‒ Important Notice

The discs, files and/or other media contained herein (and their content) are the personal property of the undersigned and may not be opened, used or accessed in any other way other than those expressly authorised in writing by the undersigned or the executor of his/her deceased estate.

Persoonlike argief ‒ belangrike kennisgewing

Die skywe, lêers en/of ander media hierby ingesluit (en die inhoud daarvan) is die privaateiendom van die ondertekende en mag nie oogemaak, gebruik of andersins toeganklik gemaak word nie, behalwe waar uitdruklik skriftelike toestemming gegee is deur die ondertekende of die eksekuteur van sy/haar bestorwe boedel.

NAME & DATE

I am releasing the notice into the public domain, so please feel free to copy and use it if you'd like!

Van Bulgarye, met liefde – kaarte vir die selfoon

Ek het hierdie week toeval tot by die nuttige maps.webgate.bg genavigeer. Dít is 'n webblad wat vir selfone ontwerp is en deur die webblaaier van die selfoon toeganklik is. 'n Mens kan daarop per adres soek en dan 'n mooi klein kaart van Google Maps ontvang. Die afbeelding hier onder wys die resultaat van 'n soektog vir die pseudo-adres „Benedictus Kok Street Bloemfontein” op my rekenaar. Dit lyk dieselfde op my selfoon en sou my baie gehelp het in Bloemfontein verlede week, toe ek by die verkeerde sterrewag opgedaag het vir 'n skemerkelkie!

Dit werk ook 100% in Afrikaans en 'n soektog vir „Benedictus Kokstraat Bloemfontein” gee die regte plek maar „Benedictus Kok Straat Bloemfontein” wel nie. Hulle weet blykbaar van Afrikaans se los- en vasskryf in Sofia!

$200/month - the cost of broadband in SA

I paid my Telkom bill this morning and had to reflect on the charges that I am paying to the fixed-line monopoly. The “line rental” is R693 [sic] per month, which is for a 4mbps ADSL line with no service. According to recent reports, average broadband use in the world is just over 11GB per month, so let me add the price of R719 for unshaped 10GB/month of usage from my ISP as well as R70 for an ad hoc additional 1GB. That comes to R1481 per month, i.e. $200 (US, to the nearest cent) at today's exchange rate. Foreign readers will think that I am inventing this, but this is the actual price of being connected in South Africa. The sunshine and mild weather, for which we can thank no Earthly authority, are still free.

Update on 2009-10-24: an Afrikaans version of this post has appeared on my Sake24 blog.

Broken/Stukkend 4 : receiving e-mail from customers

A friend's frustrating attempts at correspondence with Telstra, Australia's lumbering telecoms giant, has galvanised me to reprise my occasional series about customer service. He has been finding it impossible to get any reaction from Telstra about his serious billing problem by e-mail and his calls to their “customer service” numbers are simply terminating in Tagalog or Cantonese voicemail promts. The e-mail channel consists of a web-based form that allows the customer to enter 200 characters ‒ hardly sufficient for describing a real complaint.

I myself have recently had Standard Bank, “a leader in banking technology in South Africa” which is busy “ensuring the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and fairness” ask me to resend a 18-month old message to which they had assigned the reference number 1955721, since although they have not yet replied to it, they reportedly no longer have it. If anyone from Standard Bank is reading this and cares to refute the alleged loss of the message, please post a comment below.

Why are many companies so terribly bad at replying to e-mail? My conjecture is that the inappropriate pricing model (free at the point of delivery) of e-mail is partly to blame. Postal mail and a telephone call to a service center both require the supplicant to invest time and money in lodging the enquiry. Of course, an e-mail also requires time but not as much as holding for 30 minutes for the call centre. With telephonic customer service, any unmatched demand for service simply disappears as customers hang up when they are tired of waiting. E-mailed enquiries pile up, and much faster than postal mail. Why not automatically return unhandled queries or unopened e-mail messages, flagged appropriately, to the sender after a week (say) has expired?

To my surprise, I have recently had the South African Post Office reply to a message within 48 hours. The Hong Kong Post Office took a week to respond to a similar query. Kudos to the SAPO for this! On the other hand, I am still waiting for a reply to my e-mail of 20 September to CustomerCare@virginmobile.co.za and have all but lost hope. I am reminded of a remark by Niels Kjellerup of the Call Centre Manager's Forum in a recent BNet podcast:

“outsourcing [of call centres] is only for those businesses who don’t care about customers.”

He went on to explain that these are typically businesses which have customers tied up in a contract and really do not need to provide anything resembling reasonable service. I tend to agree.

Earlier posts in this series

Broken/Stukkend 1 : in QLD's “captial” city
Broken/Stukkend 2 : DSTV se rekeninge-afdeling
Broken/Stukkend 3 : SARS eFiling's e-mail