This just in from Microsoft.....

Here's the opening paragraph from a friendly newsletter from Microsoft's Windows 7 team -

"Windows 7 Release Candidate: How's it going?


Thanks again for downloading the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC). Your testing is very important -- having thousands of people use the software helps us make sure we’ve tested thousands of hardware and software combinations. So if you haven’t already installed the RC, please go ahead."

I can remember a few years back after sending a frustrated email to Microsoft's help service, getting back from them a very condescending reply, which left me with no doubt that they were the undisputed experts, and I was the impertinent ignoramus questioning their methods and motives of doing whatever they deemed best for us unwashed masses of computer wreckers out here in the more uneducated corners of cyberspace.

Normally, I would have fired back a sharply-worded caustic comment, but for some reason, I decided not to. Instead, I toned that down and actually got a conversation going between me and an actually quite nice gal named Sally. Sally asked me to tell her what I would really like to see in an operating system, and that just about blew me off my chair, because until that point, Microsoft's reputation for friendly public relations left - to put it mildly - something to be desired. As this back-and-forth progressed through several exchanges of emails, Sally and I were able to have a very informative conversation, and she actually seemed to appreciate some of my suggestions, which she said she would like to pass along to her superiors. And who knows? Maybe that's how it all begins... two people getting past their own egos and moving on to a place where there can be a meeting of minds and an actual well-intentioned spirit of co-operation.

I know I'm making much of a newsletter sent out to users around the world by a company that rules the world in its own field of endeavor, but this newsletter tells me that there's been a change of heart at Microsoft, and an acknowledgement by them of the importance of having us ordinary non-experts out here helping them, in our own simple ways, to do whatever they are doing just a little better than they might otherwise be able to do without our involvement. Together, we're all making a difference, not just in someone's bottom line, but in how we all feel about each other, and in how we are all able to work together creating something better for all of us. I hope we continue in that spirit of cooperativeness even after this testing program has been concluded.