Friday, October 31, 2008

The Super Movie Computer.

Ever watched a movie and seen how ridiculous the computer interaction is or how computers behave, unlike normal computers in real life.

I came across a site which lists 28 of some really funny and unbelievable things computers and people do. http://www.geekpolice.net/jokes-fun-stuff-f1/things-computers-can-do-in-movies-t3806.htm

Here are a few of my favourites.

1. You never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences.

2. You can also infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing "UPLOAD VIRUS". (See "Fortress".)

3. All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer even if it's turned off.

4. People typing on a computer can safely turn it off without saving the data.

5. A hacker is always able to break into the most sensitive computer in the world by guessing the secret password in two tries.

6. You may bypass "PERMISSION DENIED" message by using the "OVERRIDE" function. (See "Demolition Man".)

7. Computers only take 2 seconds to boot up instead of the average minutes for desktop PCs and 30 minutes or more for larger systems that can run 24 hours, 365 days a year without a reset.

8. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. Movie modems usually appear to transmit data at the speed of two gigabytes per second.

9. Computers can interface with any other computer regardless of the manufacturer or galaxy where it originated. (See "Independence Day".)

10. Computer disks will work on any computer has a floppy drive and all software is usable on any platforms.

11. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it will have (See "Aliens".)

12. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional active animation, photo-realistic graphics capabilities.

13. Searches on the internet will always return what you are looking for no matter how vague your keywords are. (See "Mission Impossible", Tom Cruise searches with keywords like "file" and "computer" and 3 results are returned.)

What are your favourite great movie computer moments. Leave us a comment.

Should Christians Support Halloween?

It’s 31 October and for many people, especially our American and British friends, its Halloween. Its trick or treat time. This has been seen as a harmless celebration over the years. It has not been much supported in South Africa, but support is growing. As we become more connected, as we are influenced by American culture, through television and friends. The participation in Halloween increases.

But as a Christian, should you be participating in this event. With no clear direct references to Halloween in the Bible, resolving the age old debate can be a challenge. How should Christians approach Halloween and is there a biblical way to observe this secular holiday?

Christians have been strongly divided on the observance of Halloween. Some believers feel complete freedom to observe the holiday, others run and hide from it, many boycott or ignore it, a number celebrate it through more positive and imaginative observances or Christian alternatives to Halloween, some don’t even know about it and wonder what all the fuss is all about, and still others choose to take advantage of Halloween's evangelistic opportunities.

The origins of Halloween are from a strong Celtic tradition. Halloween has pagan roots originating from the ancient Celtic festival, Samhain. The Celtic people were very spiritual and were conscious of another world, the spiritual world. They had their own ideas of how they could gain access to it - such as by helping their over 300 gods to defeat their enemies in battle, or by imitating the gods in showing their intellect and cunning.

Their two main feasts were Beltane at the beginning of summer (May 1), and Samhain (pronounced Sah-ween) at the end of summer (Nov. 1). They believed Samhain was a time when the division between the two worlds became very thin, when hostile supernatural forces were active and ghosts and spirits were free to wander as they wished.

"During this interval the normal order of the universe is suspended, the barriers between the natural and the supernatural are temporarily removed, the sidh lies open and all divine beings and the spirits of the dead move freely among men and interfere sometimes violently, in their affairs"
(Celtic Mythology, p. 127).

This harvest festival of the Druids ushered in the New Year, beginning on the evening of October 31, with the lighting of bonfires and the offering of sacrifices. As the Druids danced around the fires, they celebrated the ending of the summer season and the beginning of the season of darkness. This is not applicable to southern hemisphere residents, as our summer begins in September. Perhaps this is why South Africans took so long to latch on to the celebrations.

It was also believed that at this time of year the invisible "gates" between the natural world and the spirit world would open, allowing free movement between the two worlds.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. During their rule of the Celtic lands, Roman festivals were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The Romans observed the holiday of Feralia, intended to give rest and peace to the departed. Participants made sacrifices in honor of the dead, offered up prayers for them, and made oblations to them. Another festival was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

In the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs, to replace the pagan festival of the dead. It was observed on May 13. In 834, Gregory III moved All Saint's Day from May 13 to Nov. 1 and for Christians, this became an opportunity for remembering before God all the saints who had died and all the dead in the Christian community. Oct. 31 thus became All Hallows' Eve ('hallow' means 'saint').. However, some of the pagan beliefs and practices associated with the celebration have persisted.

In 1517, a monk named Martin Luther honored the faithful saints of the past by choosing All Saints Day (November 1) as the day to publicly charge the Church heirarchy with abandoning biblical faith. This became known as "Reformation Day," a fitting celebration of the restoration the same biblical faith held by the saints throughout church history.

So what has that got to do with celebrating Halloween today. Surely those historical tractions have been long forgotten, and have no significance to us today. To find out if Halloween has any real religious connotations today, we need to research the Religions of Satan.

Our research brings us to Wicca, the official religion of witchcraft. What does it have to say about Halloween? Perhaps they viewed the day as a simple fun and innocent neighbourhood activity?

To our shock and dismay we found that Halloween is a real, sacred day for those who follow Wicca. In fact, it is one of two high and holy days for them. The Celtic belief of spirits being released is current, along with the worship of Samhain (the lord of death) – both are promoted as something to embrace on that day.

There is no question that to those who believe and follow the practices of witchcraft, Halloween represents an opportunity to embrace the evil, devilish, dark side of the spiritual world.

Deut 18:10-12 “10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”

These verses are pretty clear on what a Christian should not do. But you say, I’m not sacrificing my children, I’m not calling on the spirit of the dead. I’m not worshipping the devil. How many Christians are sacrificing their sons and daughters as a burnt offering on Halloween? How many are calling forth the spirits of the dead? The verse does not say that "trick or treating" disgusts the Lord.

However, what if you have come to the Christian faith from a background in the occult? What if, before you became a Christian, you did practice some of these deeds associated with witchcraft and sorcery? Perhaps refraining from Halloween and its activities is the safest and most appropriate response for you as an individual.

We need to be circumspect as to how our deeds and actions affect others. Often times there are no clear cut answers as to how to behave in the bible on certain issues. But one thing is clear. If it causes my brother to fall ,I should abstain.

Rom 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother‘s way.

1Co 8:13 Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.

How then does this affect us as Christians. Well the bible does tells us to avoid all appearance of evil. 1Th 5:22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.

But it also tells us to be all things to all men. 1Co 9:22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

Does this then mean we are to embrace the very evil things that men might do in order to win them to Christ. Absolutely not.We are to resist the Devil. we are to be in this world not of this world. But we are also told not to love the things of this world.

1Jo 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

There are many verses in the bible that in principal warn against such things as Halloween. Sure, the Bible does not say “Thou shalt not celebrate Halloween”. But it does say to honour God, resist the Devil, flee temptation, do no evil.

1Thes 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.

3John1:11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.

1Cor 10:31 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

Clearly Halloween is a worldly festival rooted in paganism. Clearly it is stooped in Devil worship. We should have no part in it. What we as Christians need to do is ask ourselves, are we doing justice to the cause of Christ by celebrating Halloween? If not, what then are we to do? Do we just ignore it, hide away, or run?

The answer I believe is No. Do not ignore or run away. Embrace the opportunity to spread the Gospel. I’m not advocating trick or treating. But have you ever considered the people that would potentially knock at your door, opening themselves up to a short gospel message. You do not have to go trick or treating, but you can give your testimony to those who are willing to come to your door. Along with your sweets you could also give some gospel tracts. Or how about creating a gospel message around some of those sweets.

Have you ever heard of the “Wordless Book” It has five colours representing the Gospel. Black – Sin, Red – Blood of Christ, White – Salvation, Yellow – Heaven, Green – Growth. What about Sweets or treats based on those five colours. As you hand them out, you can share the Gospel.

As Christians you and I are placed in this world to be a light in a world of darkness. There is no lasting benefit to ignore a holiday that exists around us, but it also does harm to celebrate Halloween as it has originated and grown over the centuries.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Updating Multiple Social Networking Sites

Social Networking? Can be a life saver or a pain in the never region. Can take up a large portion of your day, and life. Can be a great business tool or a production black hole. Like most things, SN (Social Networks) can be good or bad. Depending how you use them.

I know of some people who spend up to three hours a day, updating their SN sites. Things like blogging, Facebook, twitter, plurk, flickr. This seems to escalate depending on how many SN sites you keep active.

When I first started out with my new Internet Business, website design and development, I added SEO to my stable. One of the things I learned quickly was that SN could drive traffic to your website. Help with building back links and help promote your website.

So what did I do? I started to join multiple Social Networks, including Facebook, twitter, plurk, linkedin etc. I also started blogging setting up multiple blogs. Some have similar content some are vastly different.

I soon found out that this took up a large amount of time. Having a new business I could not justify all the time spent on SN. I needed to bring in paying clients, I found it more profitable to spend time coding than Social Networking. But still realised the importance of SN.

I was in a bit of a dilemma. I knew that Social Networking could help me, but had no time to dedicate to it. As a result a lot of the SN sites were neglected. I only focused on the ones I thought might benefit me.

Enter in ping.fm. Ping.fm is a service that helps with updating multiple Social Network sites. By writing, or blogging in one place you can update everything. Their motto - "Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap".

Once you sign up, you add various services to your account that you want to update. They have many services in their stable and are adding more. Things like Blogger, LiveJournal, Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, LinkedIn. etc.

By writing in one place, ping.fm, you can post (ping) to all your SN sites. Updating your status, ,micro-blogging, full blogging. I am doing this right now. This blog was sent to multiple blog sites via ping.fm.

Whether it is advisable to send the same thing to multiple blogs is for another discussion.

With ping.fm you can ping (post) to all your Social Networks at once, or to a selected group, or to individual ones. This is done by triggers. These triggers help ping.fm to know what you are trying to do. For instance, you could just make status updates, or post to your micro-blogging sites like twitter and plurk, or even post to you full blogging sites like Blogger and Wordpress. You can ping them individually or as a group.

You can even create your own triggers, so that you can post to your own combination of SN sites. For example, you might want to only post an update to Twitter and plurk. Create a trigger, write your update, and ping using that trigger.

Ping.fm makes it even easier to update your sites by providing other services that you can use to update them. Services like Instant Messaging. Do you have AOL IM, or Live Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger. Set up a ping.fm contact using their application key, and then you can update your Social Networks through your IM client.

If that does not work for you, you can set up an e-mail to update you Social Networks. This I find will work great for those who are behind a company firewall and are prohibited to go to certain sites. With an e-mail you could possible circumvent this and update your Facebook or twitter via e-mail. Although I haven't tested this out, I see no reason why it should not work.

If you have tried this out. Leave a comment and let me know how it went.

What if you have been banned from the internet and e-mail. Well ping.fm have provided another way for you to update your SN sites. Through the use of your Mobile phone or iPhone, you can update all your SN sites. You can even SMS (text) your updates in, or send e-mails from your Mobile and iPhone.

All in all I am impressed with this service. It certainly has taken out the drag of updating SN sites. I recommend you take a look and let me know.

Leave me a comment, tell me what you think.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Feeling overjoyed at the moment. Got my first Client enquiry via Google organic search. Sounds Promising. Has my SEO paid off.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

It's Monday morning. Another day at the office and deeper in debt. Got so much work to do today.
Yes Yes Yes !!! Liverpool won 1-0. Top of the Log

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Who is really weird

\Who is really weird?\

Are you fanatical??

I was blessed today as I was invited to a Christian mens breakfast. Being Currie Cup Rugby weekend (Similar to super bowl for those on the other side of the Atlantic), the restaurant was full of Sharks and Bulls supporters.

Our challenge was all bout wearing the shirt and playing for the team. Just wearing a rugby shirt does not make one a player. You do not automatically become a team member if you just happen to have a rugby jersey. On the flip side of the coin though, you cannot be on the team without a team shirt or jersey on.

The application was drawn to the Christian life, where many people who claim to be Christians are not team players but merely supporters. God does not want supporters for Christianity, He wants players.

My attention was then drawn to this idea of supporters. Wow and do we have some fantastic supporters. Even fanatical ones. Supporters who would paint themselves in the colours of their team. Wear the team colours. Sit with like minded team supporters. Some would even die for their team.

I mean friendships have been lost over supporting the opposite team. We call these people fanatical. I dare say that many of us are fanatical in some way over some team or other. We would easily skip work and play, for an opportunity to support our favourite team.

Being fanatical, takes real commitment and belief, even faith. Some would even support their team to the bitter end. I remember a man who committed suicide in the stadium after a Rugby Currie Cup final. His team lost, just lost.

My question though is, are we as fanatical about Christianity as we are about our sport? Are we proud to don the team colours, are we proud to look like a Christian? Do we advertise our Christianity as we would advertise our supporting team? Do we show up in the crowd as being vastly different? Would we sit with the same team members, do we advertise who and what we are?

We, most times, accept that being fanatical about sport is OK. Its part of life. But when someone is fanatical about God, then they are weird. There is something wrong with them.Why is it that we can be fanatical about sporting heroes, but when it comes to the Creator of the universe, we are embarrassed.

My challenge is, don on the Christian colours. Put on your Christian jersey. Advertise Gods emblem. Be more fanatical about Gods team than you are about some sports team. The one good thing about doing this is, that Gods team will never ever loose. Can you say that about your team?

Jos 24:15 And if it seem evil to you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

'Good Samaritan' Container - Christmas 08

Oakdale Baptist Church, Rock Hill, South Carolina

Oakdale Baptist in Rock Hill, SC are the champion's for our next 'Good Samaritan' container. We so desire to supply the GS donated goods to 8 disadvantaged Christian schools (linked to local Bible believing churches) in squatter camps around the City of Cape Town for Christmas 08.

We need your help with goods. We have received so far approximately 40 / 50% of goods needed to fill a 20' Shipping container.

The shipping costs to Cape Town have been graciously donated by Oakdale Baptist but we are in need of more goods. If you, your church or ministry have any of the items listed below that you would like to donate then please make contact with Jeff Reynolds (Oakdale Baptist Church) email address: jeffsiestakey@gmail.com Church Tel Number is: (803) 327 7972. Jeff will give you details in respect of where you can delivery the goods.

List of Material Needs

  1. Educational Books – Math sets, English, Geography, Readers, stories, Colouring books.
  2. Bibles, New Testaments, books for Christian Church and School libraries
  3. Educational Toys -   puzzles, games, craft paper, soft toys, cars, dolls, Lego blocks, children’s bicycles and sports games, soccer balls
  4. Educational Tools – Calculators, Compass, protractors, dividers, erasers, rulers, glue, sharpeners, pens, crayons, powder paints and brushes
  5. Teacher training materials – Books, Computer software and programs
  6. Medical – Vitamins, antiseptic, Tylenol, cotton wool
  7. Accessories – Plates, bowls, spoons, gloves, sellotape
  8. Computers (new and used) and software for early educational learning
  9. Clothing – only NEW clothing can be shipped. No USED clothes because of SA customs rules for imports.
  10. Candy for the Christmas Party for the children at their schools

To get the goods here for Christmas 08 we will need to ship the container by the 10th November from Rock Hill.

We trust the Lord that we will be able to give these special children a wonderful Christmas cause like the 'Good Samaritan' we did not pass bye.

God bless you as you help us with this special project. Have a blessed day, John and Barbara

Cape Missions Inc. USA (Public Charity 501c3 Reg. 20- 5122073)

Cape Town, South Africa
Tel: + 27 21 786 5163
Fax: + 27 0865119631
Email: john@capemissionsint.co.za
Website: www.capemissionsint.co.za