I had to call Mr. Softy a few days ago to help me with a licensing issue. Of course the call was farmed out somewhere that I can only assume is not in the USA. So once again I was speaking to someone with a heavy indian accent named, Jerry.
I’ve had these calls before and was ready for the long haul. Especially while expecting to get a 32 digit authorization key. However this time was different. Jerry was rather smart and had done this before. He used the phoentic alphabet and this call was a snap!
The main benifit to the phonetic Alphabet is that it’s standardized. I got the following data from a NASA page that explains it in detail. For now, I’m posting my own for reference.
| Alphabet |
| A ~ Alpha |
N ~ November |
| B ~ Bravo |
O ~ Oscar |
| C ~ Charlie |
P ~ Papa |
| D ~ Delta |
Q ~ Quebec |
| E ~ Echo |
R ~ Romeo |
| F ~ Foxtrot |
S ~ Sierra |
| G ~ Golf |
T ~ Tango |
| H ~ Hotel |
U ~ Uniform |
| I ~ India |
V ~ Victor |
| J ~ Juliet |
W ~ Whiskey |
| K ~ Kilo |
X ~ X-ray |
| L ~ Lima |
Y ~ Yankee |
| M ~ Mike |
Z ~ Zulu |
| Numbers |
| 0 ~ Zero |
| 1 ~ Won |
| 2 ~ Two |
| 3 ~ Tree |
| 4 ~ Four |
| 5 ~ Five |
| 6 ~ Six |
| 7 ~ Seven |
| 8 ~ Eight |
| 9 ~ Niner |
|
Since the call I’ve used this several times without having to repeat to people the difference between an “M” and an “N”.
phone, tech support, phonetic
I was playing the very last puzzle in the google Da Vinic Quest game. When I logged into my personalized google home page I saw this warning and captcha request:
Of course my first attempt failed, can you tell if thats a zero or an ‘O’ ? Apparently I’m not the only one. I’m thinking that this means the whole world was querying the snot out of google trying to go for the big prizes. Has anyone else experienced this?
google, google captcha, Da Vinci Code Quest, Da Vinci Code, captcha, prize
On Thursday 4/20/06 I ordered a few 10 packs of DVD-R’s from sonystyle.com. I was in need of these in a hurry and wasn’t paying attention. These were out of stock items. Not seeing this, I continued to place the order and order via 2 day shipping.
Today being 4/25/06 and my product had not arrived yet, I called customer service to find out where the product was. I was able to get through the telephone robots rather quickly to a human being. The phone operator, who was very pleasant by the way indicated to me that the product was backordered and thats why they hadn’t arrived yet. Though I did need them, I understood that in my haste I didn’t check to see if they were in stock. I did, however ask the operator to discount the 2 day shipping fee, as the product had not arrived in 2 days.
The operator explained to me that the item will be shipped in 2 days, after the product is in house. This struck a nerve in me, so I had to ask her what the deal was about paying for 2 day shipping yet not receiving it in 2 days. She explained to me that it states clearly in the delivery terms that backordered items still ship 2 day, AFTER they arrive in house. I complained to her that the terms were not very evident at the time and place of order. She told me that they are on there, and I may not have seen them. Because of the err on my part of not checking to see if they were in stock I did beleive her that I must have over looked them. Sure enough – in VERY small print, was a link to the terms:
And sure enough, in the terms window of small print, it states:
Estimated Delivery Date – Express Shipping
In Stock items are typically placed with a carrier for shipment the business day following the Order Date; please anticipate In Stock items ordered with Express Shipping will arrive in 2 Business Days. Items that are Currently Out of Stock are typically placed with a carrier for shipment on the business day following that the day the item becomes available for shipment; please anticipate Out of Stock items ordered with Express Shipping will arrive 2 Business Day after the item becomes available for shipment. No weekend delivery. No P.O. boxes or APO/FPO addresses.
I’m still a bit miffed about this, but considering the hurry I was in I wonder if I would have seen this had it been not soo small to begin with. I think this should have been mre clear at the time of order. Anyone else have a similar ‘delivery issue’ with other online purchases?
I’ve been searching the web over an hour now looking for an image for a file folder to be used in a php FTP script I’m creating. Do any readers have suggestions where I could find such an animal? The closest I’ve come was a pay site over at istockphoto.com. I might add that I’m looking for something a little schnazzy like an OSX look. An ‘open’ version and a ‘closed’ version.
Update 10:57am I was able to locate a nice set of clipart at openclipart.org. Most of them are vector images too!
Suggestions? URL’s? Pointers??
Is there a worm in your apple?
From Reuters:
A malicious computer worm has been found that targets Apple Computer Inc.’s Mac OS X operating system, believed to be the first such virus aimed specifically at the Mac platform.
Leap-A a.k.a the Oompa Loompa Trojan spreads through the iChat program. It trys to send itself to all the buddies in your buddy list. That is the main method of spread/ infection. The way to get the virus is to actually accept the file when prompted. The virus targets the Cocoa application in Macs.
Sophos.com calls this “This is the first real virus for the Mac OS X platform,”. Sophos also goes on to explain that this IS a virus and not a trojan:
A Trojan horse is a seemingly legitimate computer program that has been intentionally designed to disrupt and damage computer activity. Importantly, Trojan horses do not replicate or have any mechanism of spreading themselves. They have to be deliberately planted on a website, or accidentally shared with another user, or spammed out to email addresses. There is nothing inside a Trojan’s code to distribute themselves further to other victims.
Interestingly enough Macworld claims it is not a virus, but malware:
“Leap-A is not a virus, it is malicious software that requires a user to download the application and execute the resulting file,” said Apple. “Apple always advises Macintosh users to only accept files from vendors and Web sites that they know and trust.
and goes on to say “The only way you can get the Leap-A malware on your machine is if you take some action to put it there yourself.”
About half way down the Macworld article they go into how Leap-A is like a virus, AND like a Trojan, AND like malware. There’s also instructions how to remove “Whatever it is”.
Is this such a mutation that we can’t define if it’s malware, a virus, or a trojan? I’m getting kind of confused here myself. Good thing I run a PC?
Leap-A, OSX, virus, trojan
