Touching Story (Love Story)

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw
a kid from my class was walking home from school. His
name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his
books. I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring
home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a
nerd."

I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football
game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I
shrugged my shoulders and went on.

As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward
him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his
arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses
went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten
feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible
sadness in his eyes.

My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him and
as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw
a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said,
"Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives." He looked
at me and said, "Hey thanks!" There was a big smile on his face.

It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.

I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where
he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him
why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to private
school before now.

I would have never hung out with a private school kid
before. We talked all the way home, and I carried some
of his books. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I
asked him if he wanted to play a little football with my
friends. He said yes. We hung out all weekend and the
more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my
friends thought the same of him.

Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the
huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said,
"Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles
with this pile of books everyday!" He just laughed and
handed me half the books.

Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best
friends. When we were seniors, we began to think
about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I
was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be
friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He
was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business
on a football scholarship.

Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the
time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for
graduation.

I was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and
speak. Graduation day, I saw Kyle. He looked great. He
was one of those guys that really found himself during high
school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses.
He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him.
Boy, sometimes I was jealous.

Today was one of those days. I could see that he was
nervous about his speech. So, I smacked him on the back
and said, "Hey, big guy, you'll be great!" He looked at me
with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled.
"Thanks," he said.

As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and
began. "Graduation is a time to thank those who helped
you make it through those tough years. Your parents,
your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach...but mostly
your friends. I am here to tell all of you that being a
friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I
am going to tell you a story."

I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the
story of the first day we met. He had planned to kill
himself over the weekend. He talked of how he had
cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn't have to do
it later and was carrying his stuff home.

He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile.

"Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from
doing the unspeakable."

I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular
boy told us all about his weakest moment.

I saw his Mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same
grateful smile. Not until that moment did I realize it's depth.

Never underestimate the power of your actions. With
one small gesture you can change a person's life. For
better or for worse.

God puts us all in each other's lives to impact one another
in some way. Look for God in others.

Troubling vista for Microsoft

USUALLY a man known for his hyper-abundant energy, Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer looked relieved rather than pumped yesterday when he began his opening spiel at the double-whammy launch of Microsoft Windows Vista and Office 2007 at the tech-centric Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.

Office and Windows are the software cash cows that built the largest personal fortune in history for Microsoft founder Bill Gates and created a software giant so pervasive it is estimated that Windows sits on 90 per cent of the world's PCs. At the Nasdaq launch, Microsoft CEO Ballmer was pitching hard for that dominance to remain, in spite of the new code being as much as two years late to market.

"It's exciting to finally be here," said Ballmer, putting a big emphasis on the word "finally".

Vista is the much awaited replacement for the venerable Windows XP, launched in 2001.

It was first mooted for launch in 2004, rescheduled for 2005 and then finally slated for a full launch by Christmas 2006 - another deadline missed as the full consumer launch is now due early next year.

Its launch comes at a time when Microsoft is facing more serious threats to its business than at perhaps any other time since the launch of Windows 95 a decade ago.

Cashed-up market darling Google wants to bust up Microsoft's stranglehold on desktop computing with free browser-based word processing, spreadsheet and productivity software that lets people store their files online.

Then there's the free software competition from the likes of Linux and the open source desktop productivity initiative OpenOffice.

Kept on hold by the many delays and shifts in politics which are part of the scenery with Microsoft operating system

'We were working hard on a variety of new technologies but probably trying to do new things and integrate them together too quickly and just lost the cycle time'

ot;Then we did a service pack for XP focused on security in one year and then we did most of what you see in Windows Vista in about 2 1/2 years, drawing on some of the incubated technologies from before."

Ballmer appeared unfazed by the many competitors lining up for a slice of Microsoft's market share.

"We've been competing with free software for many years," he said.

"Linux has been in the market for many years, as has OpenOffice, StarOffice ... blahdy blahdy blah.

"Just because something doesn't have an upfront fee is no guarantee of popularity. You have to have something that is good."

He was even more dismissive of the Google software. "If a pretty good, free office package hasn't taken share, why would a less good package that violates your privacy and has less features do better?"

The so-called Business Value launch at Nasdaq this week was aimed squarely at corporate users that buy up Microsoft software in volume licensing deals.

When the flag falls on Microsoft's consumer launch on January 30, the continuing health of Microsoft's share of the consumer market is a given as almost every new name brand PC will ship with Vista by default.

Much harder for Microsoft is convincing business customers to move off the old Windows XP installations that many have struggled for years to make stable and secure and on to the brave new world of Vista.

The same problem applies to Office 2007 and, traditionally, business customers have taken years to do the switch.

Some are now only just switching to the obsolescent Windows XP.

From a profit point of view, Microsoft wants companies to move on to Vista and Office 2007 both for the incremental upgrade revenue and the revenue from all the new back-end software that accompanies the pair.

At the Nasdaq launch, Microsoft trotted out 30 new high-profit margin products associated with the Vista/Office 2007 release.

"This is by far the largest wave of products we've ever kicked off, all anchored around the most significant (Office and Windows) releases that maybe we've ever done," Ballmer said.

As well as Vista and Office, Microsoft has begun shipping the new Exchange Server 2007 email and messaging server, and a raft of other server platforms the company hopes will burrow into the fabric of business IT systems and tighten the company's grip on corporate computing.

These offer new features to tempt corporate users.

The new Office SharePoint Server 2007 that underpins corporate information portals can now search deep inside other vendors' enterprise applications, such as SAP's ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems that are fundamental to many large businesses' logistical operations, and Siebel's customer relationship management software, and drag out hidden details.

Corporations have been frustrated that they can search the vast internet more easily using Google than they can search their own systems, constructed using enterprise applications that are not easily accessible to Windows, and have internal search functions that are only available to select people within an organisation - the IT guys.

As an example of how this search could be useful, Ballmer offered up the example of an insurance executive who wanted to raise vehicle accident policies taken out before the Christmas holidays because he was sure potential silly season drink drivers were insuring themselves against mishap.

The executive was sure the data supporting this move was deep in his firm's corporate information systems, but he couldn't get at it. Ballmer believes the new search tools would have solved his dilemma.

A new feature likely to appeal to business people chained to their email inboxes is the ability to ring up the Microsoft Outlook email software, manipulate the inbox and calendar scheduling through voice recognition and "hear" email messages spoken.

It was in a demonstration of the new dial-in email server feature that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who is moving away from day-to-day management responsibilities and leaving them to Ballmer, made his only cameo appearance around the worldwide Vista/Office launch extravaganza. Gates's high-pitched voice appeared as the voice welcoming Microsoft officials who demonstrated the feature.

It will take more than fancy new features to convert corporates tired of dishing out money to rejig vast Microsoft installations just because Microsoft thinks it's a good time to move on.

There's a rule of thumb in IT management land that you don't install a new version of Windows or Office inside a company until at least the first, glitch-fixing service pack has been released.

Ballmer hopes the unprecedented beta testing of the pair - about 5 million pre-production trial versions of Office and Windows were downloaded worldwide - will speed up adoption.

As well as the upgrade costs associated with the software, business must shell out for the transition costs that arrive with major IT changes. These include staff retraining costs and the costs of loading up the new code.

Microsoft officials say the retraining effort with Vista and Office goes up depending on the user's expertise with the old software. Power users could take up to two weeks to get comfortable with the changes whereas unsophisticated users would only take several days to get their heads around the new releases.

Microsoft believes transition costs with Vista will be much lower than those that came with shifting from earlier versions of Windows to XP, but it would not quantify the costs.

Instead, business will have to rely on the experiences of early Vista adopters such as Westpac, which has decided to move to Vista rapidly. Microsoft has about 500 organisations worldwide looking to hitch up quickly with Vista and Office, with about 30 in Australia.

While Ballmer poo-poos freebies from Linux and Google, Microsoft has got into the free software game in a small way to push the new Vista and Office at the software developer community.

Microsoft is giving away free copies of Vista Business and Office 2007 Professional until February 28, 2007, through its Power Together program (www.powertogether.com). The offer is open to US residents who complete a series of webcasts or online lab sessions.

Unfortunately, Australians miss out on the scheme, which is only open in the US. A Microsoft Australia official confirmed the scheme did not apply here and Microsoft would only ship the gift copies to US addresses.

Pope puts best foot forward in Turkey

SHOELESS and dressed in white, Benedict XVI became only the second Pope in modern times to enter a mosque when he prayed alongside a senior imam at Istanbul's most majestic house of Islamic worship.

The Pope toured the 17th century Blue Mosque with the Grand Mufti of Istanbul, Mustafa Cagrici, gazing overhead at its intricate tile work, in his most deliberate gesture yet of conciliation toward Muslims infuriated by his remarks about their faith.

Near the end of the tour, Dr Cagrici said quietly: "Now, I'm going to pray." The Pope lowered his eyes and appeared to mouth his own brief, silent prayer as the lights of the mosque glinted off the heavy gold cross nestled against his white frock.

For just under a minute, Pope Benedict stood facing Mecca alongside Dr Cagrici, a gesture of reverence to Muslims he angered in September by quoting a Byzantine emperor who accused Islam of fostering violence.

"'Thank you for this moment of prayer," the Pope told the Grand Mufti. "This visit will help us find together the way to peace for the good of humanity."

In marked contrast to his predecessor John Paul, Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was reluctant to embrace interfaith celebration, making this gesture all the more remarkable. It came on the penultimate day of a busy pilgrimage to Turkey, his first to a Muslim country, that also focused on bridging Catholicism's 1000-year-old rift with Orthodox Christians.

He has had to balance concessions to Turkey's Muslim majority with support for the country's dwindling and beleaguered Christian minority.

Dozens of Turks waving banners telling the Pope to go home were arrested on Thursday in small protest rallies in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul. Well-armed riot police were stationed throughout that and other parts of the city, much of which was virtually locked down in a massive deployment to ensure the pontiff's safety.

Police beat some of the protesters and a number of journalists attempting to cover them.

The Pope avoided potential controversy in a visit to Hagia Sofia, an imposing structure built in the sixth century as a Byzantine church and converted to a mosque in the 15th century by the Ottoman sultans. The rigidly secular forces that formed modern Turkey in the early 20th century made Hagia Sofia a museum and one of Istanbul's most popular tourist destinations, where public displays of worship are banned.

The mere suggestion that the Pope might pray there had enraged Turkish nationalists. When the late Pope Paul VI came to Istanbul in 1967, he knelt to pray in Hagia Sofia, touching off a protest by extremists convinced he was trying to reassert Christian jurisdiction over the site.

Pope Benedict visited the vast museum of domes and minarets in more restrained fashion. He refrained from any overt religious gestures and instead listened to explanations from his host, Istanbul province's Governor Muammer Guler.

The Pope and his entourage then moved across the street to the Blue Mosque, officially named Sultan Ahmet Mosque for the ruler who commissioned its construction in 1609.

In deference to Islamic custom, the Pope removed his red leather shoes and slid his feet into white slippers before walking into the building, illuminated dramatically by scores of lanterns suspended from the blue-tiled ceiling.

Dr Cagrici led the Pope through the mosque, reaching the mihrab, or niche, that faces Mecca. There the two men paused in silent reverence. The Pope folded his arms over his midsection, just below the large golden cross dangling from his neck, cast his eyes downward and, finally, bowed his head as the turbaned Grand Mufti standing at his side said a brief prayer.

LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST

The words that i like

- Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed
- Dancing is silent poetry
- Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake
- If you are going through hell, keep going
- Maybe this world is another planet's Hell
- Black holes are where God divided by zero
- The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true
- Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down
- The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows
- The mistakes are all waiting to be made
- Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names
- If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning