Just got myself a copy of Battlefield of the Mind, by Joyce Meyer from CNA. I have been itching to read this book for a very long time.  This book is recommended for many of us who are trapped in a persistent negative thought pattern (Worry, doubt, Jealousy …)  . Unlike many existing Christian development books whereby they were written in such a prescriptive manner, what I like about it was the personal examples of the writer’s life (such as her unpleasant childhood which she accounted as one of the reasons for her to grow up as an unpleasant adult) in which she fought negative thinking with the help of the Word of God and prayers.

Pauline Joyce Hutchison Meyer, more commonly known as Joyce Meyer (born on June 4, 1943) is a Charismatic Christian author and speaker. Her television and radio programs air in 25 languages in 200 countries, and she has written over 70 books on Christianity. Joyce and her husband Dave have been married since January 7, 1967, have four grown children, and lives near St. Louis, Missouri. Her ministry is headquartered in the St. Louis suburb of Fenton, Missouri.

Meyer frequently talks about overcoming obstacles and finding strength to deal with difficult circumstances. She shares her views on how to deal with everyday life situations, often drawing on her own experiences. Meyer speaks candidly and with a sense of humor, sharing with her audience her own shortcomings and taking playful jabs at stereotypical church behavior.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs confirms tablet PC rumours; pricing for iPad released

Following months of speculation Apple CEO Steve Jobs today confirmed rumours that the company has been working on a mobile tablet PC.

Dubbed the iPad it is set to occupy the market segment between mobile phones and netbooks, allowing users to browse the internet, access email access images, video, music games and eBooks. (more…)

DURBAN, South Africa — A bad week for South Africa coach Carlos Alberto Parreira ended happily as the 2010 World Cup hosts overwhelmed Swaziland 6-2 in a non-cap friendly.

It was the first outing of the year for Bafana Bafana (The Boys), who face Mexico and former champions Uruguay and France in Group A during June at the most watched global sport event.

And while football minnows Swaziland conceded one soft goal after another at Chatsworth Stadium in this Indian Ocean city, when you coach goal-shy South Africa the sight of the ball hitting the net is always cause for celebration.

Gert van Schalkwyk and Franklin Cele scored twice each and Katlego Mphela and Thulani Serero once apiece for South Africa, who managed a miserable 10-goal return from 18 outings last year.

Despite the friendly billing, Swazi defender Sihawu Dlamini did not enter into the spirit of the occasion and two yellow cards led to his expulsion 12 minutes from full-time against an all-local South Africa line-up.

Parreira, who guided Brazil to victory in the 1994 World Cup and the quarter-finals in Germany four years ago, was furious after hopes of an early March start to a training camp in his homeland were dashed.

A club fixture clash between the South African Premiership and the African Football Confederation (CAF) meant the final round of domestic league fixtures had to be delayed one week to March 6 and the Brazil camp cut short.

South African officials say the national squad will also train in Germany during April and at Kempton Park on the north-east outskirts of Johannesburg the following month before facing Mexico in the June 11 World Cup opener.

Bafana, who changed the entire team at half-time, are likely to receive a greater examination of their progress after a two-week Durban camp when they face Zimbabwe in a friendly at Moses Mabhida Stadium next Wednesday.
AFP

Language: The official languages are Siswati and English.

Currency: The official currency is the Lilangeni (SZL), plural Emalangeni, which is equal to 100 cents. The South African Rand is also accepted as legal tender (notes only) and is pegged to the Lilangeni (L1=R1). Visitors should exchange any Emalangeni they have left back into their own currency before leaving the country. Travelers cheques are widely accepted and are best taken in US Dollars, Euros or Pounds Sterling, to avoid high commission. American Express, Visa and MasterCard are widely accepted. Banks are generally

open Monday to Friday, and some banks are open on Saturdays. Visa ATM machines are available in the main towns.

Time: Local time is GMT +2.

Electricity: Electrical current is 230 volts, 50Hz. The plug type used is a 15-amp round, three-pin plug as used in South Africa.

Communications: The International direct dialing country code for Swaziland is +268 and the outgoing code 00, followed by the relevant country code (e.g. 0027 for South Africa). The city code (0)67 is used for Villaverde de Guadealimar only. The country is covered by a GSM 900 mobile network, and an Internet service provider is active. Post offices open weekdays from 8am to 5pm, and Saturdays 8am to 11am. Public telephones are well distributed through the towns and villages.

Duty Free: Travelers to Swaziland do not have to pay duty on 400 cigarettes, 50 cigars and 250g tobacco; 1 bottle alcoholic beverage (up to 0.75 liters) and 284ml of perfume. For goods re-imported to the country, travelers must complete a DA65 or NEP-form. Married couples traveling together are allowed free import for one person.

Hectic wet weekend ahead !!!

Attempts to get more information on the stab-proof vests sold by a British firm, or to buy one of them, drew a blank this week.

The company, Protektorvest, declined to respond to follow-up questions on the matter. It also ignored requests for its phone number. Sapa e-mailed the company a list of questions earlier in the week to an address found on Protektorvest’s website.

A Sascha Cutura replied by e-mail a day later, saying the company was not going to comment. “Thanks for your interest. Due to the high demand of media requests we are only able to answer a small number of interviews,” reads the e-mail.

“You will find the information you need on our website, in the current news, and in regards of the status of our company, please visit the company’s house website which will provide you with all details you need.” This was the full response.

A furore was sparked by reports on the stab-proof vests.

The Fifa local organising committee this week expressed anger at the marketing of the vests. LOC spokesman Rich Mkhondo described the vests as an “abominable money-making ploy using fear tactics”. He said: “Sports fans visiting South Africa have never needed stab vests. The marketing of such vests is a joke.”

Protektorvest’s website had no contact numbers to reach the company, nor any physical address where the company was located in Britain.

It had only e-mail addresses for sales in Germany, England and France, and several e-mail addresses for advertising on the site and where customer and media queries should be sent to.

It had links to pages on crime in South Africa, and figures on stabbings.

There was also a form where you can “design” your vest for $69 (about R520). An added $2 buys you a flag or design of your choice added to the vest.

A phone number and address for the company were obtained via a website database, but the phone number listed seemed to be incorrect, listing Cutura as registered holder of the domain name.

Earlier in the week, the website featured a map where Protektorvest’s office could be found, in Kempton Park, during June and July, but this had been removed. The Registrar of Companies for England and Wales did confirm the company was registered as a limited company.

A bid to order one of the vests via e-mail remained unanswered for three days

This gotta be my song of the moment … So Cold without Rihanna

I want my baby back
It’s so cold without her
Cold without her
She’s gone
Now I’m alone, no one to hold on
Cause she was the only one
And I know I was dead wrong
But if you youuuu
If youuu
See her sooonn
Ask her will she forgive me

If you ever see her
If you ever meet her
If you ever get a chance to sit down, talk to her
Then tell her it’s so cold
It’s so cold, it’s so cold
Here without her
And tell her I miss her
Tell her I need her
Tell her I want her
I really want her to come back home, back to keep me warm
Tell her I’m sorry, I’m really sorry
Can you forgive me?
Please forgive me
And come back home, keep me safe and warm

Now my baby’s really gone
I don’t know if she’s coming home
My love’s up,
I know
Tell me what to do to get her back
Back where her heart belongs, been gone from me for way too long

So if youuu, seen my boo
Please can youuuu
Can you tell her for me

If you ever see her
If you ever meet her
If you ever get a chance to sit down and talk to her
Then tell her it’s so cold
It’s so cold, it’s so cold
Here without her
And tell her I miss her
Tell her I need her
Tell her I want her
I really want her to come back home, back to keep me warm
Tell her I’m sorry, I’m really sorry
Can you forgive me?
Please forgive me
And come back home, keep me safe and warm

- no idea what he says right here-

If you ever see her
If you ever meet her
If you ever get a chance to sit down and talk to her
Let her know it’s so cold
It’s so cold, it’s so cold
Without her

A Christian Dating Website was recently launched in Swaziland, the Website TPTower was launched by local web designers Aqua Designs. However Todays Times of Swaziland reports that :

There is now a battle over the concept of the Christian online dating website.

This comes after the founder of The Tower of Prayer Ministry, Kenneth Nkambule, distanced his ministry from the locally developed online Christian dating website because he believes it should have been shut down, but has suddenly reappeared.

Nkambule said the website’s domain name, www.tptower.org, and the whole concept, was his creation for The Tower of Prayer Ministry, a ministry which he says to date is still run by him.

“I approached Aqua Designs with the website design for my online Christian ministry for them to host the website (uploading the design to the internet) and this was in January last year,” said Nkambule. He said initially the website was to preach online as well as provide prayer to members of his church.

“It was then that I decided on the online dating concept which I attached onto the site, but later discarded that idea as the Holy Spirit was against it,” explained Nkambule. “My ministry then experienced financial constraints and, therefore, couldn’t pay my subscriptions to the website host which led to the site being suspended on the net,” he said.

That almost sums it up. I did a simple whois search of the domain and realised that the domain is actually registered in the name of the web designers which means legally they are the owners of the domain and are entitled to use the domain as they wish which is lesson number one for website owners.

Most website are shocked to learn that they don’t legally own their own domain names. After all, they paid to have the website created in the first place, plus pay ongoing fees for web hosting and domain registration. How can they not be the owner if they’re footing all the bills?

What commonly happens is that when your web design company created your website, they took care of registering the domain for you. While registering the domain however, they listed themselves, not you, as the Registrant (i.e. owner).

Why would they do that? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I suppose it’s possible that they just don’t know better. A more cynical view, however, would be that they do it to keep you “hostage” to using their services forever (or at least make it difficult for you to switch).

Would you give a construction company the title to your land?

If all this talk about domains and contacts is still a little fuzzy, let’s compare it to a more familiar situation. Say you’re having a house built. Imagine that the builder said to you, “Hey, just sign your deed over to me so that I can take care of all those annoying details like applying for permits, etc. But don’t worry, I’ll let you live on the land after the house is built and use it just like you still legally owned it.” You’d think that was a ludicrous proposition of course, regardless of how well you knew and trusted the builder.

Well, the same goes for letting somebody else own your domain, regardless of how much you trust them.

With hundreds of corporates now joining the bandwagon of blocking facebook to its employees many people are faced with a huge problem. I personally am totally against any kind of blocking or censoring as such as it amounts to controlling adults.
Now Back to the story … how can one now access facebook when its blocked.

Unless you have changed your settings to stop email notifications, it’s likely that you receive an email every time someone comments on your status updates, photos, videos and Wall posts. Before now, the email contained a link that you had to follow, which logged you into Facebook where you could reply. You’ll now notice that the email contains a line reading “New Feature: Reply to this email to comment on this link.”

Now, the site has made it possible for you to respond to these comments directly, by hitting the reply button. All you have to do is enter your response and hit send, and Facebook will add your comment to the site.In addition, one is also given a personalised facebook e-mail address to post status updates, and images onto his/her profile.

This is big news for all those Facebook junkies out there who can’t get their daytime fix while at work because of a company firewall, not to mention all the students who can’t check their Facebook for several hours every day. We’ll see where productivity levels go after this.