“Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Fraud” is a term offered up by Google when you search for “Sri Sri Ravi Shankar”, why Google offers up the search term “Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Fraud” is rather strange, bearing in mind Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is anything but a fraud, in fact he is a renowned religious leader who has changed the lives of thousands of people for the better.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was born in 1956 in Southern India. By the age of four he was able to recite parts of the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Sanskrit scripture and was often found meditating. His first teacher was Sudhakar Chaturvedi, who had had a long cooperation with Mahatma Gandhi. By the age of seventeen, in 1973, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had graduated with degrees in both Vedic literature and physics.

In 1981, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar entered a ten-day period of silence in Shimoga, India. The Sudarshan Kriya, a powerful breathing technique which became the centre-piece of The Art of Living’s Part 1 course was born.

When asked about the origin of the Sudarshan Kriya technique, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, “It came like an inspiration. Nature knows what to give and when to give. After I came out of the silence, I started teaching whatever I knew and people had great experiences.”

Following this, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar established the Art of Living Foundation in 1982, as an international non-profit educational and humanitarian organisation that today works in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

The Art of Living’s educational and self-development programs offer powerful tools to help eliminate stress and develop a sense of well-being and have been effective worldwide at all levels of society.

In 1997, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar founded the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) to coordinate sustainable development projects, develop human values and coordinate conflict resolution in association with the Art of Living. In India, Africa and Latin America, the two sister organisations’ volunteers are spearheading sustainable growth in rural communities, and have already reached out to over 32,300 villages.

How a search engine like Google can possibly call Sri Sri Ravi Shanakar a fraud is beyond me, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar should be celebrated and not called a fraud.

Some suggest it is people searching for the phrase “Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Fraud” that causes it to appear in the search results, other say it is because people are publishing articles and web pages containing the phrase “Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Fraud”, whatever the reason anyone who has seen the work of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar or who has been lucky enough to meet him will know he is not a fraud.

With clients all over the UK and a proven track record of success,  they have achieved 1000’s of page one positions in Google, Bing and Yahoo.

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As well as a free website report, Total SEO are also offering the first month’s search engine optimisation free of charge.

If you are looking for a reliable, low cost, trustworthy search marketing company you should speak to the team at Total SEO.

The number of computers being hit by hackers exploiting the loophole in Microsoft Windows XP’s Help & Support system is rapidly increasing and the total number of PC’s affected is expected to hit over 100,000 by this weekend.

Currently there is no patch that can fix the “hole” found in the Windows XP Help & Support system that is allowing hackers to take control of machines by exploiting the “remote support” function originally designed to allow Microsoft to go into the machine and provide support and  assistance.

It is however, possible for owners of machines with Windows XP to protect themselves by disabling the function in the Help & Support area, it is reported that Micrososft have released a tool that will automatically change the Help & Support settings and effectively protect against the virus, but as of 1st July it wasn’t available on their website.

Unless a proper patch or fix is developed soon the Windows “Help & Support” XP hack/virus threatens to be one of the worst attacks in a long time, it is already spreading at a rapid speed with randomly generated websites appearing that carry the virus.

Have you been affected? Leave a comment…

If you like to comment on Do Follow Blogs (like this one), then I strongly recommend you check out Google’s Do Follow Blog Search Engine.

You can enter your keyword/s and the search engine tool will produce results only from Do Follow Blogs, you can then add a comment to the blog post and easily get a “do follow” link to your website from pages with content related to your keyword/s.

The search option is a much better alternative than trawling through the do follow blog lists produced on some other websites in the past as it allows you to quickly and easily target the exact phrase you are trying to optimise for.

That said, nobody likes comment spammers, so if you are going to leave a comment on a do follow blog, make it meaningful, generally webmasters won’t mind and will approve your comment if you are joining in the discussion or have something interesting to say, but generic comments like “nice post” or “keep up the good work” generally don’t get approved (not on this site anyway!).

If you are a CoD Modern Warfare player you may have been hit with a major problem affecting online multiplayer games on PS3 and Xbox 360, it has happened to me in the last couple of days and it is very frustrating!

The problem is for Xbox & PS3 players trying to enter an online multiplayer game, instead of finding a match the CoD lobby screen simply hangs and gives a message that it says “Testing Matches” with “0/50 Good Games” found and stays like this without finding any matches at all.

It seems the “Testing Matches” problem is on a very large scale and is now a worldwide problem with thousands of players being shut out of online CoD MW2 games, my enquiries have found that it has been going on since at least March 2010 and still hasn’t been fixed.

Everything points to the “Testing Match 0/50″ issue being with the servers at Infinity Ward rather than a problem with Xbox Live or the PS Network.

Some people have suggested changing Router/Modem settings, but I see no reason to do this, in my situation I can connect to Xbox Live and play other online games without a problem and I was also playing CoD MW2 online with no problem up until a few days ago, so why should I start messing around with router settings.

If anyone has a fix or suggestions on how to get resolve the “Testing Matches” problem please leave a comment below, I know plenty of visitors to this site would love to fix the problem and get back into multiplayer matches.

Better still, maybe we could get a comment from someone at Infinity Ward!

UPDATE – I HAVE NOW FOUND A FIX

I noticed my NAT type in the COD MW2 multiplayer menu was showing as “Strict” and I had been told that changing the NAT type in COD may allow me to get back into online multiplayer matches.

This is my fix….I turned of my router at the plug socket, left it for a miunte and turned it back on!

When I went back onto COD MW2 the NAT type had changed and now showed as “Open” the problem of not being able to get into a match had stopped and was into a game lobby full of other players within a few seconds.

Ever wondered who is the best SEO company? With hundreds of different SEO companies out there, anyone looking to hire an SEO company to optimise their website could find themselves with a difficult job when it comes to finding the best SEO.

So how do you know who is the best SEO company?

The best advice I can give is to follow these steps?

1) Ask for examples and references, get the SEO company to show you real results they have achieved for other clients and ask for a reference so you can talk to someone else who has used the SEO company.

2) Be wary of any SEO company who contacts you out of the blue (either by phone or e-mail), if they are as good as the claim how come they have time to be making marketing calls.

3) Avoid any SEO company who “guarantees” you positions in the search engines, nobody can make promises like “number 1 on Google within 3 months” – avoid any SEO company making these sort of promises at all costs.

4) Look to see if the SEO company follow best practices, a good place to start is comparing the Google guidelines for SEO companies against what work the SEO company are proposing they do on your website.

5) Make sure you fully understand what the SEO company are going to do for your money, be careful of any SEO who say they have a system or computer generated method of optimising your site, successful SEO requires good old fashioned hard work.

6) When you have decided on the best SEO company make sure you have a way of measuring the success of the campaign, ensure they know what keywords you want to appear in the search engines for and have them produce a regular plain english report so you can track progress and changes in the search engine rankings.

7) Watch out for any SEO company who want to tie you into a long contract, if their results are as good as they say why would you want to cancel…

Look at what results the SEO company are achieving for their own website, after all, if they can’t optimise their own website it’s unlikely they can do it for yours and don’t be fooled by the line “we are too busy dealing with our clients websites to work on our own”.

Your SEO requirements will vary depending on the size of your business, your budget and your brand, but regardless I strongly advise you follow the above steps and tread with caution.

Cartel Client Review and partner Solicitor firm Consumer Credit Litigation Solicitors have both been shut down by their regulators this week.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and Ministry of Justice took the action on the grounds of  “suspected dishonesty”.

Cartel Client Review had been charging customers up to £495 to review their personal loans, mortgages and credit cards with a view to having the debts written off, if the review showed the customer did not have a case Cartel promised to refund the money back.

It is reported that some 70,000 people had paid upfront money to Cartel Client Review, this is said to have totalled over £20 million. A very high percentage of Cartel’s customers have had nothing in return for their money and now face losing the payment altogether.

Anyone who paid the Cartel Client Review fee by credit card can “chargeback” the transaction and will be able to obtain a refund through the credit card company. 

As well as handling claims for unenforceable loans Cartel Client Review and partner law firm Consumer Credit Litigation Solicitors or CCLS also handled other types of financial mis-selling claims, such as payment protection insurance.

There are now thousands of people left in the lurch, not only have they likely lost any money they have paid to Cartel Client Review but their cases have not been concluded either, customers are simply being told to find another Solicitor.

Pinto Potts Solicitors have set up a helpline offering anyone who was making a payment protection insurance who has been affected by the closure of Cartel Client Review and Consumer Credit Litigation Solicitors free initial legal advice, more information from the Pinto Potts website here.

It may be harder to find a Solicitor to take on an unenforceable loan case as very few firms handle them and there is much doubt about the credibility of  such claims.

Google has the power to influence what people think or believe about a person, business or brand, I believe it may also be possible to manipulate it to your own advantage.

Recently a friend contacted me, she was concerned that when searching for the name of the leader of her group negative phrases were being suggested by Google in their drop-down options, see below. 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Fraud

The search in question is for “Sri Sri Ravi Shankar”, but by the time you have typed “Sri Sri” into Google the drop-down options Google offers have suggested his full name, but the second suggestion offered by Google is “Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Fraud”.

This is disturbing, as far as I know Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is certainly not a fraud, he is anything but, however the suggestion Google is offering will cause searchers to form an opinion simply based on what they are suggesting as a possible search term.

I believe the suggestions are provided by Google based on what users have been searching for over a recent period of time, i’m not sure how long, it could be 30, 60 or 90 days, maybe more.

Is Google policing this? Probably not if it is happy for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to be called a fraud! So, If the suggestions are purely based on what users are searching for then it would be easy to manipulate what appears in the drop-down suggestions by auto-generating huge numbers of searches for whatever phrase you wanted (and then making sure your site is top for that phrase, which will get loads of extra clicks by appearing in the drop-down suggestions).

If it really is that simple, the possibilities and potential (both good and bad) are huge.

What nobody seems to know is how to get a suggestion removed from the Google drop-down such as “Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Fraud”.

I couldn’t find what I felt was a definitive list of the top 10 cheesy songs of all time, so I thought I should put together my own list of the top 10 all time cheesiest songs ever.

Here goes, the top 10 cheesy song list:

10 – The Locomotion – Kylie Minogue

9 – Ice Ice Baby – Vanilla Ice

8 – I Wanna Sex You Up – Color me Badd

7 – Barbie Girl – Aqua

6 – Mysterious Girl – Peter Andre

5 – Agadoo – Black Lace

4 – Can’t Touch This – MC Hammer

3 – Las Ketchup – The Ketchup Song

2 – YMCA – The Village People

1 – Superman – Black Lace

Hope this list of the top 10 total cheese makes you smile, please leave a comment and let me know what cheesy songs you would have included, maybe we could get this up to a top 25 or top 50 cheesy songs of all time list.

Be warned, there is a scam on eBay and PayPal being operated by criminals based in Nigeria, they target people selling small electrical items either as Buy it Now or Auction on eBay, here’s what happened to me.

I recently listed my sons PSP on eBay, right at the very end of the auction a new bid was received from a UK eBay user who had no feedback and had only been a member of eBay for a day.

Within a few minutes I had an e-mail from PayPal saying the buyers payment had been made but PayPal were holding the money until I confirmed the item had been sent and provided the shipping number and details, although the e-mail display name gave the impression it was from PayPal, the actual email was sent from this address: customercarescentre@post.com, clearly nothing to do with PayPal.

The other tell tale sign something dodgy was going on were the spelling and grammar errors contained within the e-mails I received.

I then had a second e-mail, this time from the buyer asking that I ship the PSP to Lagos in Nigeria, if I wasn’t suspicious already, I certainly was now!

Logging back into eBay I noticed the buyer was now no longer a registered eBay user, I also checked PayPal and there was no record of the payment, even if a payment is held it would show in the account.

It was very clear to me this was a scam and if I actually sent the PSP and gave them the shipping details there would never be a payment, so be warned if you sell on eBay and are asked to ship to Lagos, Nigeria and have strange e-mails from “PayPal” telling you funds have been held.

I have now done a little research and it appears a lot of people selling items on eBay are being targeted with the same scam by these Nigerian criminals. They mainly seem to target small electrical items (handheld games, cameras, video camcorders etc’) as they are easy to sell on the Nigerian black market.

Below are a couple of the e-mails I received from my friends in Nigeria, just to summarize they work the eBay scam like this:

1) UK registered eBay user wins item
2) E-mail received from “PayPal” saying payment made but held until item shipping details provided
3) E-mail received from buyer requesting you ship to Lagos, Nigeria and provide shipping details so PayPal can release funds
4) You ship item, provide shipping details to buyer and PayPal
5) No payment arrives, you’ve just lost your item
6) Item arrives in Lagos, Nigeria and is sold on the black market

So what did I do? Firstly I reported the matter to eBay, then I did nothing, I didn’t reply to any e-mails and I suspect after a couple of further chaser messages from Nigeria they will get bored and move onto someone else.

Copies of the Ebay Nigerian scam email supposedly from PayPal below:

service@paypal.co.uk

from service@paypal.co.uk <customcarescentre@post.com> reply-to customcarescentre@post.com to simon chapple cc date Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 11:27 AM subject PayPal Payment Confirmation For An eBay Item: