The last Castle (what does leadership mean)

Yesterday was a long day with a lot of activities, I came back home at almost 22H o’clock, after taking my dinner, I was tired but I needed to wait 2 hours to take a medicament before sleeping, I was so tired to try to read something, neither to connect to the Internet so I decided to try to find something interesting on TV.

After switching between some channels, I used the info button upon MBC2 to find out the next movie, it was scheduled within 20 minutes and the title was so attractive “The Last Castle".

The story of the movie took place in a jail (a castle used as jail) especially used for imprisoning military people, the last one to attend this jail was an ex highly decorated Lieutenant General who had made a military error. The jail was managed by a severe warden who runs the prison with an iron fist, questionable tactics and implied cruelty.

The General (a role playing by Robert Redford) was so famous by his courage and his military experience; he made a mistake which putted him into the jail for 10 years.

Prisoners tried to have their rights, they asked help from the General but he refused to take any other battle against anyone, he wanted only to spend his time and go home living with his family.

But after some circumstances he decided to participate with other prisoners in a plot against the warden to make him resign.

The plan was simple, taking command of the castle which means in military laws that the warden is unfit to manage it.

In summary the movie was wonderful (if you want more details about the story you can see it on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Castle, better you can see the movie :) ), besides its military contents which shows that war isn't only weapons but a science of management, tactics and ..., the part that interest me more in the movie that in the first hand the General who has no rank in the jail was chosen by prisoners to lead them in the other hand prison's guards disobey their warden even it's their officially leader.

What I get through this movie is the real sense of leadership, a leader isn't a sever person giving orders due to his rank ,trying to have more opportunities regardless of the aim of his team, but it’ s a person working with his team and for the principals of its community and his team, a person able to give self-confidence to his team, not a person who try to take self-confidence from his team to drive them like he wants, a person who sacrifices for his community and his team and not a person trying to have the best opportunities upon his team, a person who you can trust and work with , I think this film succeed to give a very good illustration of leadership through the General.

I saw this movie twice, I wrote the almost part of this article in the first time, but what I didn't notice in the first time is that victory needs sacrifice, the prisoners in the jail took the war against the warden even they have no weapons and a lot of them died , but they have the most interesting thing to win any battle: RIGHT, they needed only courage and sacrifice to win and this is what our brothers in GAZA are doing, they are taking a hard battle against enemy to take their rights their land, the enemy is very armed but our brothers are armed with faithful that let them sacrifice for their community.

At the end I want to apologize to our brothers in GAZA, excuse us we aren’t so courage as you are and I ask ALLAH to bless you and help you.

A week in a classroom

This week, I didn’t work (what’s luck). No I wasn’t in vacation but I was following a training program, a whole week of studies I didn’t do so from a long time :):), I know I m from the kind of people who likes very much to be more and more skilled so I love too much to follow such this training program.

The training program was about Oracle Database, the most robust database in the world, the training program was called Administration Workshop l, I followed this training program with 4 others person ,all of them were very sympathetic and the trainer too.

Sincerely, I studied before a lot of things about Oracle database in my engineering school, I also read alone some books about it, but what I learnt in this training program was better, it makes me to love more this software and decide to improve more and more my skills on it, I m now planning to take the OCA (Oracle Certified Associate) exam soon Inchallah.

But taking this training program wasn’t the only interesting thing for me in this week, Allahmdolilah it was the first time when I fast during the all first days of DI ALHIJA, I also enjoyed very much the social environment created by the preparations to ALAID, so I hope for all of you عيد مبارك سعيد .

Oh, wait a second please, I forgot to say that the contents of this training program is made by ORACLE UNIVERSITY a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation which ensures spreading knowledge about all Oracle products, I think they do a great job, the content of the training program was very good, but seeing the picture above which represents Oracle headquarters, I think people who work in a such beautiful environment must do a so good job :):), I think it has a beautiful architecture.

Working over JD Edwards

I think, I m so lucky to have the opportunity to work over JD Edwards; it is one of the greatest and powerful ERP in the World.

I think its ranking number three in the world after SAP and Oracle E-business Suite, but what makes me love this software :)

First, I think the idea of ERP software is fantastic; ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is software which designed to cover all the enterprise requirements to manage its business.

To make software suitable for almost companies business rules isn’t an easy task and not all ERPs success in this task, JD Edwards (called also JDE) is one of the most flexible ERPs, even it’s more suitable for manufacturing companies and it is more used in this field.

Besides its good designing, I also like in JDE its success story and also I appreciate that this product has the name of its founders; because the J is for Jack Thompson; the D is for Dan Gregory and the E is for his truly father Ed McVaney; which makes it more human than any other ERP :)

My story with JDE began almost one year before when I integrate LES EAUX MINERALES D’OULMES a company which choices JDE as its ERP system, before I knew a little about ERPs and being working before in specific software development, I was asking myself how pre-developed software can suit an enterprise requirements.

Even I read some definitions about ERP; the first question I asked to my new colleagues was what an ERP is? Because I wanted to hear from people who had worked over this kind of products; and clearly the second question was how it can suit any enterprise requirements? , and like I am always there was a lot of questions after ( Ha Ha Ha).

But their answers hadn't satisfying me, because they talked to me about something which I didn’t touch it by my own hands, I needed to get my hands dirty with JDE.

When I came to LES EAUX MINERALES D’OULMES a number of JDE parts were already integrated, but one was waiting for me :), it’s the part about managing fixed assets, I was involved in the project team which was composing essentially by me, a colleague from accounting department and a JDE consultant.

For me the project was wonderful, even I felt so stressed sometimes but I liked very much all the moments I spent working on it.

Alhmdolilah the project succeed, I also had found answers for my early questions but I think my story with ERPs had just started :).

وَأَذِّن فِي النَّاسِ بِالْحَجِّ يَأْتُوكَ رِجَالًا وَعَلَى كُلِّ ضَامِرٍ يَأْتِينَ مِن كُلِّ فَجٍّ عَمِيقٍ, 27 سورة الحج

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «ما من أيّام العمل الصالح فيها أحب إلى الله من هذه الأيام»، يعني أيّام العشر، قالوا: يارسول الله ولا الجهاد في سبيل الله؟ قال: «ولا الجهاد في سبيل الله إلاّ رجل خرج بنفسه وماله فلم يرجع من ذلك بشىء».

قراءة القران:

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «من قرأ حرفا من كتاب الله فله به حسنة والحسنة بعشر أمثالها لا أقول آلم حرف ولكن ألف حرف ولام حرف وميم حرف»..

الصلاة في المسجد :

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «من غدا إلى المسجد أو راح أعد الله له نُزُلا في الجنّة كلما غدا أو راح»، والنُزُل هو الوليمة التي تعد للضيف..

الذكر:

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «ما من أيّام أعظم عند الله، ولا أحب إلى الله العمل فيهن من أيّام العشر، فأكثروا فيهن من التسبيح والتحميد والتهليل والتكبير»..
فأعظم كلمات الذكر عموما في هذه الأيام: ((سبحان الله، والحمد لله، ولا إله إلاّ الله، والله أكبر))

الصيام:

فالحديث العام: «من صام يوما في سبيل الله بعد الله وجهه عن النّار سبعين خريفا»،

الاتيان بمثل اجر الحاج:

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «من صلى الغداة في جماعة ثم قعد يذكر الله حتى تطلع الشمس ثم صلى ركعتين كانت له كأجر حجة وعمرة تامة تامة تامة».

القيام:

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «من قام بعشر آيات لم يكتب من الغافلين، ومن قام بمائة آية كتب من القانتين ومن قام بألف آية كتب من المقنطرين»..

الأخوة في الله:

قال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم: «إنّ من عباد الله لأناسا ما هم بأنبياء ولا شهداء يغبطهم الأنبياء والشهداء يوم القيامة بمكانهم من الله تعالى»، قالوا: يارسول الله تخبرنا من هم؟ قال: «هم قوم تحابوا بروح الله على غير أرحام بينهم ,ولا أموال يتعاطونها, فو الله إنّ وجوههم لنور، وإنّهم على نور لا يخافون إذا خاف النّاس ولا يحزنون إذا حزن النّاس وقرأ هذه الآية {أَلا إِنَّ أَوْلِيَاء اللّهِ لاَ خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ}»

صلة الأرحام:

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «يا أيّها النّاس أفشوا السلام وأطعموا الطعام وصلوا الأرحام وصلوا بالليل والنّاس نيام تدخلوا الجنّة بسلام»، وقال صلى الله عليه وسلم: «الرحم معلقة بالعرش تقول: من وصلني وصله الله ومن قطعني قطعه الله».

يوم العيد:

اعلم أنّ يوم العيد هو أفضل أيّام السنة على الإطلاق، لحديث النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم: «أفضل الأيّام عند الله يوم النحر ويوم القر»

لا تنس هذه الفرصة الذهبية:

- بناء بيت في الجنّة كل يوم إن صليت 12 ركعة من النوافل فقط، قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «ما من عبد مسلم يصلي لله كل يوم ثنتي عشرة ركعة تطوعا غير فريضة إلاّ بني الله له بيتا في الجنّة»
اقرأ سورة الإخلاص 10 مرات كل يوم يبني الله لك قصرا في الجنّة، قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «من قرأ قل هو الله أحد عشر مرات بني له بها قصر في الجنّة»


تذكر كل ساعة في هذه الأيّام بل كل دقيقة، بالحساب فعلا كل دقيقة تساوي مغفرة يوم قضاه الإنسان من أوله لآخره في معصية الله لم يضيع فيه دقيقة واحدة من المعصية، أي 86400 معصية في يوم تمحى بدقيقة واحدة في هذه الأيّام المباركة، فلا تضيع دقيقة من أغلى كنز في حياة المؤمن في أفضل أيّام الله

أوله رحمة وأوسطه مغفرة وآخره عتق من النار

Yusuf Islam

Yusuf Islam est pour moi l' un des meilleurs artistes, une vie pleine d'émotions, il trouve le chemin du vérité en 1977, et se transformera rapidement a une lampe dans ce chemin élu en 2004 homme de la paix.

so let's enjoy one of his best songs:

Father and Son

Father
It's not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to know.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy,
To be calm when you've found something going on.
But take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

Son
How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again.
It's always been the same, same old story.
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.

Father
It's not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to go through.
Find a girl, settle down,
if you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.
(Son-- Away Away Away, I know I have to
Make this decision alone - no)
Son
All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.
If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them They know not me.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.
(Father-- Stay Stay Stay, Why must you go and
make this decision alone?)