The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Posted: 06 Oct 2011 04:43 PM PDT

OCT 7 — England have the opportunity to confirm their place in next year's European Championships by gaining a point or more in Montenegro tonight, but fans of the Three Lions certainly shouldn't expect it to be easy; with England, nothing ever is.

Montenegro are a decent side. They have lost just one of their six qualifiers so far, gaining a deserved goal-less draw at Wembley last year, and could leapfrog Fabio Capello's team into Group G's top spot by winning their two remaining games (tonight against England and next week away to Switzerland).

They also have the incentive of knowing that tonight's meeting with England is without doubt the biggest game in the country's history. In fact, it's no exaggeration to state that the fixture is one of the most important events of any kind in the country's recent history, with the game holding cultural significance far transcending the football field.

Montenegro was one of the many nations that came into being after the decimation of Yugoslavia and the subsequent Balkan wars in the 1990s. Although Montenegro might not have been quite as badly affected by the war as Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, independence still came at a high price, with thousands of innocent people killed and the infrastructure of the nation left in ruins by the conflict.

Initially, Montenegro remained attached to its larger and more powerful neighbour as "Serbia and Montenegro" before a referendum voted in favour of complete independence in 2006. The breakaway represented the end of one of the most turbulent and violent periods in this old republic's history, but it's fair to say that the five-year-old nation is still very much finding its feet as a 21st century state.

A small country of fewer than one million people, Montenegro is almost landlocked in a difficult geographical location (its name means "Black Mountain") with little scope for widespread trade, industry or tourism. Without wishing to be unkind, it's not the kind of place you'd go to unless you lived there or had family there.

Bearing that in mind, the opportunity to perform in front of enormous television audiences on a global stage in Poland and Ukraine next summer would be a huge boost for the profile and self-esteem of Montenegro, and their players will therefore be inspired (or perhaps burdened) by a huge amount of responsibility when play gets underway at the Pod Goricom Stadium tonight.

Despite its tiny size, Montenegro has succeeded in producing some very good footballers. Pre-eminent amongst those is striker Mirko Vucinic, who moved from Roma to Juventus for the hefty fee of €15 million (around RM65 million) in the summer after five successful seasons in the Italian capital. He's a tidy player — technically excellent with good vision and a wide range of passing — and he presents the biggest threat to England this evening.

But he's not the only one. Skilful attacking midfielder Stevan Jovetic is another Italian-based player with Fiorentina, defender Marko Basa recently joined French champions Lille, midfielder Elsad Zverotic, who plays his club football in Switzerland for Young Boys, is a consistent performer, and English-based Simon Vukcevic (Blackburn) and Stefan Savic (Manchester City) should know what to expect from their opponents.

For England, the bulk of the nation's hopes continue to rest on the shoulders of Wayne Rooney. The Manchester United striker transferred his electrifying club form onto the international arena in the last away qualifying fixture, with two goals in the easy 3-0 win in Bulgaria, and if he can produce another inspirational performance it will probably be too much for the Montenegrin defenders to handle.

But if Rooney is kept shackled, England look decidedly vulnerable. Although they beat both Bulgaria and Wales with clean sheets last month, the performances against poor teams were far from convincing. Fabio Capello's bunch will face a much greater test against a fired-up Montenegro than they did in either of those fixtures, and qualification is far from guaranteed.

One note of optimism for England is that Montenegro have been far from their best in recent games, and surprisingly sacked their manager Zlatko Kranjcar (father of Tottenham midfielder Niko) after their defeat against Wales last month.

Although an element of continuity was assured with the appointment of Kranjcar's assistant Branko Brnovic as his replacement, the Montenegrin footballing public is currently less than confident in their team's ability to beat England tonight.

But that will all change when the opening whistle blows in the small, compact and atmospheric Pod Goricom Stadium — home fans will put their recent discontent behind them in search of an historic victory. Will England be good enough to repel them?

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Goodbye, Steve

Posted: 06 Oct 2011 04:39 PM PDT

OCT 7 — His passing will be missed by the whole world as his influence is everywhere.

Steve Jobs' foresight led him to develop the first commercially viable personal computer in the late 70s, the Apple I and II.

I have been reading Time magazine since my teens as a way to improve my English, as well as my general knowledge.

I remember I was still a young man in the late Seventies, just out of university, when one day, I read in Time magazine about two young men who had designed a computer, in a garage, that was small enough to be used in homes and small offices.

Never did I dream that what I read then was the beginning of personal computers and that my whole life as well as millions of others would be changed by this invention.

The two young men were Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, who together put out the first commercially viable personal computer, the Apple I and later an improved version, Apple II.

After reading about the computer, I wanted to own one. I finally managed to get one in the early 80s, as a gift from my eldest brother, who travelled often overseas then as an engineer/businessman. He carted back one Apple II, together with a tape drive for storage, for me.

I can still vaguely remember that the computer had only 32K RAM, which is so small by present-day standards, and the screen was monochrome.

I did learn to do simple programming then, using a simple programme called "BASIC", and I was able to design a simple programme to do simple calculations on the computer.

I also enjoyed tremendously a game called Lode Runner. It is still available over the Internet, and I still have a version in my netbook, and I think it is more fun than other arcade games.

My two oldest kids grew up playing this game, and my daughter as a small girl could usually beat me by attaining level 30 and above, while I would be struggling at level 10 and onwards..

It was well-made and lasted for many years. I still have fond memories of that machine; unfortunately, after it broke down and I couldn't get anyone to fix it then, my wife dumped it.

I went on to own PCs in the XT series, 4086 and 4088. Later, when the XT machines broke down, I migrated to AT 286, 386, 486 and finally 586. Finally, we have the Pentium chips, and then Pentium 2, duo cores and what have you.

All in, I must have spent a fortune on computers and migrating to another and yet another. The money is well worth it since it has given me a good background on computers and the related cyberworld, the Internet.

Among my contemporaries, I was glad that I was one of the more computer savvy ones, and in fact I was one of the earliest one to subscribe to Jaring which started the first Internet service in the country in the early 90s.

I was also one of the earliest to move on to Streamyx broadband from Jaring. Now I am on Maxis-Fibre-to-the-home, downloading games, movies, concerts and TV serials from the various file sharing sites on the Internet, as well as blogging and networking.

All these habits of moving up and keeping pace with the vast changes in the tech world started with the gadget invented by the two Steves in a garage many years ago.

I bring out this point because there are millions like me, all over the world, who have Steve Jobs to thank for the gadget he invented and the habits he influenced.

Even among the younger generation, their lives are influenced by Steve. Many of them have gadgets such as iPods, iPhones and iPads. Even if they don't own one of these, chances are the handphones they use are influenced by Apple, too.

Most of the handphones sport a big screen covering almost the whole of the phone, a hallmark of Steve Jobs's influence. Then there is iTunes and the apps that have given millions the pleasure to live.

To me, he is someone who really makes a difference to all of us. Without Apple I and II, perhaps the PC revolution would not have been as fast.

Nowadays, even though mostly I use a simple netbook run on Windows software (since it can last many hours on one charge compared to other notebooks), I play games (my favourite is fieldrunners) on an old iPod given to me by my daughter, and I do own a Mac which can run on Mac OS as well as Windows.

I shall miss Steve Jobs and the innovations he brought to this world. He has helped make my life, and that of millions of others as well, more meaningful and more purposeful.

May his soul rest in peace... Amitabha! (Steve Jobs was a Buddhist!)

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Jumaat, 7 Oktober 2011

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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