If you read only the on-line version of Fortune’s “Best Advice I Ever Got”–our recent cover package that’s on newsstands until Monday–you missed Nora Ephron. You know her quirky, intelligent wit from her best-selling books and movies like When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. Here’s “My Two Cents”–10 Best Advice tips, actually–from the director, screenwriter and novelist whom I’ve long admired and come to know:

Never put tomatoes in the refrigerator.

Location, location, location.

Life is too short.

Never run for a bus.

Don’t learn how to iron or someone will make you do it.

Don’t eat anything that’s not worth eating.

You know as much about investing your money as they do.

Yelling at your children is no more effective than speaking softly.

Marry a man who was unhappily married to his first wife for 17 years.

Get a dog.

“I don’t think you’re going to have those anymore. Bigness isn’t that great an asset anymore.”

– Tom Freston, former Viacom (VIAB) CEO, in a Reuters story about the waning influence of media moguls. These titans are being upstaged by the darlings of digital, like Facebook’s Marc Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Evan Williams. Old and new media alike are gathered this week at the Allen & Co. media summit in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Freston’s opinion comes from experience. After being fired in 2006 by one major media tycoon — Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone — he has gone on to help Oprah build her OWN cable network (which is likely to have a strong digital play) and to join U2 frontman Bono on his mission to reduce global poverty and AIDS. Read more about Freston in Pattie’s profile of “The Most Wanted Man on the Planet.” –Jessica Shambora

Google (GOOG) is barging into the business of computer operating systems—via Chrome, due next year. Microsoft (MSFT) is vigorously defending its turf–via Windows 7, its new operating system due in October. Simultaneously, Microsoft is striking at the heart of Google, via Bing. “We should have been earlier in search,” said CEO Steve Ballmer two weeks ago in France when asked to name his greatest regrets over the years.

We may be at a tipping point in tech. The spending will rise. So will the sparring. And as the sparks fly, have you noticed? Google and Microsoft both seem to be doing their own searching…to answer that most basic business question: Who am I?

Ballmer riffed on this question, actually, at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. I did an  on-stage Q&A with him there (you can find details and video clips by searching “Ballmer” on Postcards‘ homepage), and afterwards, I followed him to a meeting with the Cannes “Young Lions.” These are rising-star marketers and creative execs age 3o and under. One of them asked: “What does Microsoft stand for?”

Ballmer seemed to love the question. “This is a real debate inside Microsoft,” he replied. “It’s rumored that we’re going to open retail stores,” he added, and then he surveyed the Young Lions about whether it would be wiser to call the stores “Microsoft” or “Windows.” Ballmer suggested that “Microsoft” means “software company” and “well-run business.” What does “Windows” mean? “Access” and “guide to technology,” he said.

Ballmer didn’t get what he hoped for in this mini-focus group. The young stars of the ad universe appeared evenly divided on the ideal name for the prospective retail outlets. Microsoft’s chief ended the discussion by asking: “How many people here use Macs?” Most in the room raised their hands. “Biased!” Ballmer bellowed.

For what it’s worth, we’ll likely see in October what Microsoft can do retail-wise. The company is mum on its plans, but it’s a pretty safe bet that stores will open this fall, accompanying the Windows 7 marketing onslaught. Retail is a gamble; except for Apple (AAPL), consumer tech giants have stumbled. Managing conflicts with existing retailers, like Best Buy (BBY), is tricky too. Moreover, who would bet that Microsoft, which has never oozed sex appeal or product-intro pizazz, would be good at this game?

Then again, Microsoft is redefining itself–or trying to, at least. To command its retail drive, the company recently recruited a heavy-hitter: David Porter, previously head of worldwide product distribution at DreamWorks Animation SKG (DWA). Before the movie gig, Porter spent 25 years at Wal-Mart (WMT).

One of the smartest takes on consumer tech retailing is a story that Fortune ran in 2007: “Why Apple is the best retailer in America.” It’s worth reading again.

“Just like Henry Ford drove down car prices and ripped the heart out of the automobile industry, Google is trying to force Microsoft to cut its prices and eat the heart out of Microsoft’s revenues.”

- Gartner analyst Tom Austin, on Google’s (GOOG) drive to steal customers from the heart of Microsoft’s (MSFT)–its Windows operating system. “Bring it on!” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer two weeks ago in France, where I interviewed him at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Ballmer boasted that Windows’ superior integration and support is worth the higher price than any system that Google will offer. Here’s Microsoft’s boss talking about Windows 7, due in October, and lessons learned from Vista:

Last week, Rica Rwigamba attended a meeting with Starbucks (SBUX) CEO Howard Schultz at the U.S. embassy in Rwanda. Rica lives in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, where she is co-owner and director of New Dawn Associates, a “responsible tourism” and event management company. Rica is also a participant in the 2009 Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership, an extension of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Through this mentoring program, Rica spent three weeks in May shadowing her assigned mentor, Mary Wittenberg, who is the CEO of the New York Road Runners (which puts on the New York Marathon each November). We asked Rica to share her observations of the Starbucks event with Postcards readers, and she offered this captivating account.

Rica Rwigamba at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Dinner, May 2009

It was a gathering of more than 50 Rwandan business people and staff from the U.S. embassy, Howard and members of his team, and fair trade guys. It felt great to be part of it, and I realized the power of being part of a network. Lots of the people in the room were directors and experts in their fields. Some have undergone trainings or U.S. sponsored programs like me, and that is how they got invited.

I had read about Howard, so I knew his remarkable achievements and his picture. It was funny to see that the woman I sat next to didn’t have a clue about him and didn’t even know what he looked like until I pointed him out. I can’t bet $1 million USD that she wasn’t the only one who didn’t know about him, because I don’t have that kind of money. But it was interesting to witness that!

His message wasn’t what was expected. Everyone waited to hear how he had climbed the ladder and made so much money. He didn’t really talk about that. Instead he talked about how special Rwanda was and how he felt he wanted to contribute to the development of the country. He praised the people of Rwanda for their efforts and constant struggles. He shared his memories of the meeting he had with a woman member of a coffee cooperative whose dream was to own a cow. He compared his life as a young man who came from a humble background and how it’s not money that really makes a person, but values — which many forget about because of riches.

The highlight of the event was the interaction with the crowd. One man pointed out an initiative started in eastern Rwanda to sell coffee made by women once a week. This was done to encourage men to let women make money from their work. Women often work the hardest in the field but they never get to sell their crops. So this guy said that they convinced the men to let women sell their products on Thursday at local markets and brand them “coffee made by women.” And what is selling the best?  The man then asked Starbucks to encourage this culture within cooperatives that they participate in and one day sell “Coffee made by Rwandan women” in their stores.

The crowd really applauded that. And a woman from the fair trade group later said that something similar was happening in Latin America, and that Femina was sold as “coffee made by women.” It will be interesting to see if this initiative is actually implemented! Howard invited this guy to attend a meeting in Seattle that will take place this year.

It was great to witness the active discussion and to know that Starbucks has now opened an office in Rwanda, and that we are the first African country where they have an office. If nothing else, I hope our coffee gets a permanent market and that the culture of drinking coffee is spread in Kigali and around the country. Did I say that I am drinking delicious Rwandan coffee while writing this?

“If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.”

– Michael Jackson’s lyrics from “The Man in the Mirror.” The song rang out as the King of Pop’s casket was carried out of the Staples Center in Los Angeles Tuesday. The 20,000 seat arena was filled to capacity as fans witnessed tributes from Smokey Robinson, Brooke Shields, Al Sharpton and others during the two-and-a-half hour ceremony. –Jessica Shambora

The ideal career path may be: reaching the top of the corporate world, then taking time off for family when your kids need you most, and then jumping back into a primo job at a top-tier global company.

Impossible in this dreadful economy? Here’s someone who’s done it. Remember Jeanne Jackson? At Gap (GPS) in the 90s, she built Banana Republic and then went to help Wal-Mart (WMT) take Walmart.com from start-up stage. But after leaving Wal-Mart seven years ago, Jackson was out of the big game, except for board gigs at McDonald’s (MCD), Nordstrom (JWN), and Nike (NKE).

She’s back. Actually, I follow these Most Powerful Women (and Jackson was one, on our annual list a decade ago), but the announcement four months ago that she landed at Nike–as President, Direct to Consumer, reporting to the CEO–was so low-key that I’d missed it. A few days ago, I spotted Jackson’s name and Nike title on the participant list for our upcoming Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. I popped her an email. We talked yesterday.

“I made a commitment to my family,” Jackson, 57, told me, explaining why she had dropped out for so long. Since 2001, when she joined the Nike board, Jackson actually had talked on and off with chairman Phil Knight and CEO Mark Parker about joining the company. But not until this year, when her son graduated from high school and her daughter accepted an internship in London, at Burberry, did she decide to jump.

She didn’t think the jump would be to Nike first thing. “I thought I’d do something related to private equity,” says Jackson, who has been quietly running her own private equity/consulting business, MSP Capital, out of Newport Beach, California for the past several years. She expected one of the companies she backed “would speak to me.” But nothing did. (Along with “some spectacular failures,” she says, she scored a couple of hits, including Pure Digital, which sells the Flip camera and recently was acquired by Cisco.)

As the global economy tanked, she felt ever more drawn to the thing that she has focused on throughout her career: strong brands. Says Jackson, who was at Disney (DIS) and Victoria’s Secret early on: “In this economy, consumers default to strong brands.” Now, in this new role that Nike CEO Parker created for her, she oversees the company’s global retail holdings. That includes some 3,500 franchised Nike stores, more than 600 wholly-owned Nike and Cole Haan stores, and five e-commerce sites. Some $3 billion in revenues annually travels through these “direct to consumer” channels.

And despite the global meltdown, Nike is performing well. Revenues reached $19.2 billion in the year ended May 31. Profits fell 21% after five years of 20%+ annual growth, but investors have stayed with the stock: It’s up nearly 40% in five years, while the S&P has dropped 20%. The world’s largest athletic shoe and apparel marketer, Nike has smartly reduced spending and layers of management, while selectively adding key talent like Jackson.

Of course, she’s contending with the retail slowdown–Nike too has cut new-store expansion. But in some ways, Jackson is returning to the sort of thing she did inside Gap and Wal-Mart: playing entrepreneur inside a corporation. Last week, she opened the first Hurley/Converse/Nike store, in Orange County, California. The Hurley brand is for surfers and skateboarders and other cool kids. Converse, she says, has particularly broad appeal–from high school kids to musicians to “my mother-in-law, who is 87 years old and wears Converse.”

The family dynamic–usually a complication when executives, especially women, return to big jobs–is alright for Jackson. At least until her son heads off to SMU this fall, she’s commuting from California to Oregon, where Nike is based. Husband Doug, a retired airline pilot, is flexible and always has been. “I could take any job and he would just relocate,” Jackson says. (He has his own passion: cars. He owns the Batmobile–one of four built in 1966 for Batman on TV.)

Jackson, meanwhile, has simplified her business extracurriculars. She quit the boards of Nordstrom and Harrah’s Entertainment, as well as Nike. The one board she’s staying on: McDonald’s. After all, you can never get enough lessons in smart retailing.

“It’s sort of the silver lining of things not being quite fair: It’s not as big a deal if you say, ‘I’m going to take a salary cut and see if I can be something else. A night-club singer.’”

Nora Ephron, talking about women, in “Nora Knows What To Do” in the current issue of The New Yorker. After reading this profile and hearing the Sarah Palin news, Ephron’s quote haunted me all weekend. Could it be that Sarah Palin quit just because, well, she could?

Doubt it!

But as Ephron says, “Women way more than men” are able to change their lives because typically they’re not the breadwinners. So society punishes women far less than men when they quit to do something else entirely. (Unless you’re the governor of Alaska and explain your inability to explain yourself by quoting your parents’ refrigerator magnet: “Don’t explain: Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.”)

Anyway, writer-director Ephron, whose new movie “Julie and Julia” is due out in August, spews some fine wisdom in that New Yorker piece–which (it drives me crazy) is not online since the folks at Conde Nast insist you pay for their content. So pick up the issue this week–it’s a double issue still on newsstands. And if you want more Nora Ephron, you can find it in the “Best Advice I Ever Got” issue of Fortune now on newsstands. Hmm, Ephron’s advice is missing from our online “Best Advice” offering. I’ll check that out tomorrow. Meantime, you can buy the issue!

Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine cover story, “The Gavinator?!?!”–about San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the field of colorful candidates vying to succeed California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger–was breezily entertaining. So breezy that it skipped a few important points.

And having written a Fortune cover story, “Can Meg Whitman Save California?” about one of those  gubernatorial rivals, I can’t resist weighing in…

First, on the money. It’s strange that yesterday’s New York Times story didn’t mention news that came out last week: Whitman, the former CEO of eBay (EBAY), has raised more than $6.5 million in five months since declaring her candidacy last February. That’s more than Newsom ($2.8 million) and way more than Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell, her competitors for the Republican nomination. Some 85% of her money has come from California–and she has big-name supporters there, including Cisco (CSCO) CEO John Chambers, Yahoo (YHOO) chief Carol Bartz, and Marc Andreessen, the uber-entreprenuer who happens to be the subject of a cover profile in the new issue of Fortune, released today.

Mitt Romney and John McCain have endorsed Whitman too. And though I have no desire to promote Whitman, I can’t resist mentioning that she is the anti-Sarah Palin. She’s not a quitter–which will be key in a race that is already intense and still more than a year away from the finish line. I’ve known Whitman for a decade, and I’ve learned that she’s focused. She’s grounded. She’s pragmatic. You might say that spending $50 million of your own money to compete for governor of America’s sickest state–as she suggested to me that she’s willing to do–is hardly pragmatic. (Indeed, business celebrities who have tried to buy their way to the California statehouse have blown up in the past. Remeber Al Checchi, Bill Simon, Michael Huffington…?) But after character, money counts here. Whitman has already contributed $4 million of her own money.

I also have to weigh in on the “rent-a-horse issue,” as we at Fortune have come to call it. The New York Times Magazine story yesterday mentioned–repeating a charge we’ve heard before–that our cover last March showed Whitman “holding the reins of Brandy, a regal-looking horse, although an editor at Fortune later admitted that Brandy was a rental horse and did not belong to Whitman.”

The facts, folks: Brandy belongs to a Whitman supporter in Half Moon Bay, California, near where the photo was taken. Whitman has horses of her own–nine horses, in fact–which she keeps near her family vacation home in Colorado. She’s a lifelong outdoors-woman and accomplished rider who transplanted West–which is why we proposed this cover shot. While we could have transported one of Whitman’s horses from Colorado, why put a horse through that?

It turned out, on that Saturday last February when we did the ocean-side shoot, Brandy was a very frisky animal. Whitman tamed her. Here’s one more picture that didn’t make it into the magazine…

A gloomy outlook as we head off for the long weekend. Today’s monthly jobs report was worse than May’s, worse than expected, and worse than we’ve seen in 26 years. The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.5%…and is bound to go past 10%.

So when will the pain ease? Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer told me last week: “I don’t think we’re in a recession. I think we’ve reset. It’s very different. A recession sort of implies a recovery…I don’t assume there is a recovery.” Here’s the video of Ballmer and me on stage at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, where he was named Media Man of the Year.

While in France, I caught up with another CEO, WPP Group’s (WPPGY) Martin Sorrell, who’s long been one of the more wise and worldly forecasters. (His company owns ad and marketing agencies that serve global giants like IBM (IBM), American Express (AXP), Ford (F), and Nestle (NSRG.Y), as well as Microsoft.) I asked Sir Martin is he buys Ballmer’s belief that media spending might decline as a percentage of GDP in the next 10 years. “I think advertising and marketing services as a proportion of GDP will be flat or rise,” he replied. “Any flatness or decline in the developed markets will be outpaced by growth in the BRICs and next 11.” Next 11? He means the major developing countries beyond Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

As for that broader question of how we’ll “reset” or otherwise emerge from this global economic downturn, Sorrell has an artful way of envisioning it: “It will be like an italic, lower-case letter “L” with a little bit of a flip up,” he says. “The recovery will not be a ‘V.’ And it will not be a ‘W.’ The little flip up will come in the first half of next year.”

Noodle that, and leave your worries behind this weekend!

P.S. In case you missed them, here are two more video clips from my conversation with Steve Ballmer in Cannes: Ballmer on Bing and Yahoo and Ballmer on Windows 7 and lessons from Vista.