2012 has been the biggest year of my 31 years so far and with all the highs/lows I wouldn’t change where I am now for anything. I’m also very much looking forward to 2013 because of a lot that happened in 2012. It’s pretty incredible to the point I still shake my head weekly. I let go of a lot in 2012 but gained so much more, and there was always music.

Here’s my 10 favourite albums of the year.

1. Deftones – Koi No Yokan
2. Two Door Cinema Club – Beacon
3. Punch Brothers – Who’s Feeling Young Now?
4. Alt-J – An Awesome Wave
5. Beach House – Bloom
6. Tame Impala – Lonerism
7. Passion Pit – Grossamer
8. Eight And a Half – Eight and a Half
9. Ellie Goulding – Halcyon
10. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

And of course since there’s sooo much amazing music out there 10 is never enough, so here’s the honourable mentions…

• Sigur Ros – Valtari
• Of Monsters & Men – My Head is an Animal
• Muse – The 2nd Law
• Silversun Pickups – Neck of the Woods
• XX – Coexist
• Burial – Kindred EP

It hasn’t been without some interesting moments though. The first week here my apartment’s door lock broke and my Super had to climb over the neighbours balcony to mine and break the balcony window to get into my apartment and replace the lock – I watched him all through the mail slot in horror! Windows been fixed now and my super and I bonded though, he even looks out for me now.

But the more time I spend in the city the more I’ve realized that I’m a sitting duck in a Zombie Apocalypse.

This isn’t a crazy thing to think about anymore even American Homeland Security released a warning for everyone to prepare and I have been planning for years for any emergency but since moving here it’s really hit home that it’ll be very difficult for me to get out alive.

Where I used to live I had a full-proof plan. It involved some breaking and entering to get a proper weapons but I’m pretty sure I would survive at least a few weeks/months by retreating to an island that wasn’t far from where I lived and the area wasn’t very densely populated which would make it easier to escape.

Living right downtown is a completely different animal though and here are the reasons that I’m probably doomed even if I follow the Zombieland rules.

1. Height. My apartment is more than 10 floors up. Too many to jump and also too many to make some sort of ladder to climb down with so I’m going to have to use my door. One way in and one way out leaves room for possible run in situations if my neighbours are already zombies.
2. People. My building has over 900 people living in it and I’m on a mid-high floor. The stairs are for sure the way out, but I wouldn’t be alone and sure I would meet some possible zombies in the stairwell which leads to my next reason…
3. Weapon. I have none aside from my Grandpa’s swiss army knife. Suppose should go grab a baseball bat out of my storage unit. Also probably a good idea to invest in something sharp beyond a kitchen knife.
4. Outside is more people. Once I’m out of just my building, the street I live on has about 8 more buildings with equal to more residents living in them so even if I do make it outside there’s going to be some massive insanity going on on my street.
5. Partner. I live alone. My neighbours are nice but they are families and therefore already have picked up their partners. My plants are great company and even having a pet would be fantastic but they are no survival partner.
6. Car. It’s currently sitting on the 2nd floor of a basement, confined in a tight space is not the place to go when there are zombies on the lose.
7. Traffic. If I do end up getting to my car and getting out of my building, I’m still downtown surrounded by traffic which will make it that much more difficult to take any route out of the city.
8. Supplies. I’m pretty skinny and can’t carry much so I should stock my car up with some emergency supplies and make sure I have a bag ready to go upon the moment – should but haven’t done that yet as when I moved I purged a lot of stuff.
9. Family. My Mom/Grandma are also in an apartment so even if I get as far as my car and to their place the danger is now doubled by getting them out of that apartment on the 5th floor.
10. Fitness. If I have to run I’m dead. I can walk, I like walking but I know I can’t run to save my own life so if it comes to that I’ll get trampled (see picture, I was already eaten – it already happened).

In some ways I’m always prepared. I tend to always have my car’s gas on full, I always have canned goods and bottled water around and I even have written out a plan like this but those 10 things against me it’s going to be an uphill battle to make it out alive.

You may be laughing at this post but even beyond zombies it’s good to have a plan for a natural disaster as the plan would be the same (maybe minus the sharp weapons of defence). It’s always good to be prepared and preparation is always good to think about.

Do you have a Zombie Apocalypse plan or even an emergency plan? With Halloween around the corner there’s bound to be some zombies out and about ready to strike!

There have been a bunch of posts finger pointing in the SEO world the last little bit and between the outing and Scamworld taking punches at internet marketing it’s been an interesting time in the SEO world. More interesting than TMZ some times! If you’re into that stuff… not that… I am… sure…

My own life outside of SEO has been on a bit of a highway to the mystery zone lately and has been on it’s own interesting set of changes. Life happens when you’re making other plans and not many of the people who are reading this probably know much about me other than I do SEO at Treefrog Interactive, and I do… or I did.

As of last Thursday I hung up SEO Hat. Well more just putting my SEO skills in my back pocket as I’ve been provided an opportunity to take a position I’ve dreamed about since graduating college over a decade ago.

When I graduated college I was determined to take over Toronto and demand 80k a year to be a web developer. I was naive, very naive. I walked into an interview once and assumed I already had the job and thought they shouldn’t interview anyone else. Ok I was a bit full of myself as well, not my proudest moment.

Well with time I’ve come back down to earth and learned that I need to learn a lot before I crawl, crawl before I can even walk, learn to walk again sometimes and that there’s always something more to learn and there are people out there who know a lot more than you do so check your ego at the door.

Over the last 10 years I’ve taken sidelines from the web to work in music stores and on customer service desks as I crawled back into the web most recently at Treefrog, having spent 5ish years to get back on the web junket.

Recently fate has been working in awesome awesome ways and the new position I accepted is for a large agency in downtown Toronto as a web developer that I start June 4th. Time time though, I’m under no false hope and know this is going to be a learning experience and I’m excited for every step of it.

So along with this new opportunity comes moving which I’m doing the day before I start and I semi-recently ended a very long relationship where we owned a house together too so change is my world right now, I’m in it and it’s all happening at a top gun pace right now. I’ve had a quote in my head for years and it’s “The only constant in life is change” – I am that right now.

I barely had time to write this blog post out but know it’s necessary for a multitude of reasons, including SEO’s blog about everything so here I am.

Thank you to the SEO community. The niche I’ve found through Twitter is filled with so much knowledge and so many intelligent marketers with insane jedi skills that I wish there were more hours in the day to read all their amazing words. They are the future of SEO so check out my SEO list and follow them – you won’t regret it.

I’ll continue to follow the SEO world, it’s always been of interest to me and is the fastest changing industry I’ve ever been a part of – I won’t be able to quit cold turkey and I’ll take everything I’ve learned back into the development side. I’ll still tweet about all the fun stuff going on too, it’s like candy to me.

I’m off to continue packing all my stuff into boxes and maybe eat something, that’d be a good choice.
I’ll have lots to blog about including more details about this change and many more coming up so stay tuned and here goes nothing!

Get one yourself done at visual.ly

Someone told me your 20s are when you’ll change the most and I did but I didn’t change my car. It was my consistent in a  decade that brought a lot of change and adjustment.

I originally bought the car (a Volkswagen Golf) right after graduating college in 2002. I was a wide-eyed, peppy, psyched 21 year old set out to make million dollars a year building the internet. I was going to take on the world, and the car was the first step in that direction.

Together as I learned though, we went through 4 jobs, moved 6 times myself, moved friends more than a dozen times, changed boyfriends, changed friends, transported animals I’ve owned, helped friends moving away, helped friends moving back and that’s all just scratching the surface.

I’ve sang, cried, screamed, laughed and slept in that car. At times it was more of a home to me than some of the places I was living. I even taught a few friends how to drive standard in that car and one went on to buy a standard car after our lessons – fully converted them!

I drove it to weddings, funerals, hospitals, parties, concerts, Montreal, cottages and always to be trips to Ikea for some random furniture that would fit in my Golf over anyone else’s cars at the time. It has taken me to every place I’ve needed to go and some that were just for fun.

Together we’ve driven around Toronto so much I now know my way around the city pretty well. I like to drive to think a lot and Toronto is far enough away from where I live that it’s a good time to get the thoughts fully out and organize them, and we did that a lot together.

I would be lying if I said it never had problems. After 10 years together it was going to cost quite a few pennies to ensure it would even pass emissions. I carried around jumper cables constantly, lights inside had gone out, buttons had broken, rust was everywhere, there were noises I tuned out as to not worry myself (or anyone else) and I always had my phone on full charge just incase. Lately there had even been some close calls including learning that cab companies can give you a boost for a fee – so I decided it was time for us to part ways.

But this is my homage to a good, consistent car that’s prompted me look back at the last 10 years of my life now that the time has passed and the car is gone.

That car as been along for the ride with me for all the significant and insignificant changes in the last 10 years and I’m so very glad it was my constant and hope I’ll be writing an update blog post when I do make that million dollars with my new car (haha).

Thanks for 10 crazy, awesome years Golf.

There are big shifts in music going on right now, and with the decline of physical albums and the launch of services like Rdio & Spotify it seems we’re shifting back to a singles and playlists world.

I worked at HMV (British owned music retailer that was sold in June to a British restructuring company) at a high point for the compact disc so this is an odd shift for me but I’m coming around to it now. I remember when 50 Cent’s first album “Get Rich or Die Trying” came out it sold so fast we had to keep shuffling stock around to have enough for weeks and people would buy 2 copies – one to keep sealed and the other to listen to.

Unfortunately the compact disc and album way of thinking isn’t working anymore in the new world of music. iTunes charts rule and if you hear a song you like, you download that song and add that to a playlist of other songs you specifically are into. Everyone I ask listens to something different and the amount of music out there is staggering. I make it a point to ask all of my friends what’s on their playlists to try to keep up to date but feel I’m always trying to attain the knowledge of music I had while working at HMV.

For 2011 I still have my favourite albums below but for 2012 I think I’m subscribing to Rdio (only because Spotify isn’t available in Canada, that’s another blog post in itself) and although on Rdio you add albums there’s a big push towards playlists. For 2012 think I’ll do a “favourite music of 2012 playlist”.

All that said I’m still really psyched to see where music heads in 2012, for now here’s my favorites…

1. Radiohead – King of Limbs

I’ve read a lot of disappointed reviews on King of Limbs but I can’t stop playing it still and also the TKOL rmx album, that counts for two and makes it #1 for me. They’re evolving with music and are excelling at it.

2. Adele – 21

She was everywhere in 2011, and played everywhere. That turned some folks off of her but not me, her voice gives me chills and I would love to hangout and have a tea with her. I’ve been a big fan of Adele fo a while, her album 19 was on my favorite albums of 2008.

3. M83 – Hurry up, we’re dreaming

Gotta love a group that’s named after an actual galaxy. I spent a lot of time with Saturdays = Youth and it was a big album for me to work to and Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is much the same. Thank you M83 for helping me get my work done.

4. Foo Fighters – Wasting Light

My friend and I have a joke. Whenever we make a decision it’s “The answer is always Dave Grohl”. It’s funny to us. The man makes the most amazing music that lasts. Everlong is one of my favorite songs of all time and some of the tracks on Wasting Light in my opinion are as amazing to me right now.

5. James Blake – James Blake

I could not escape James Blake in 2011. Really amazing music and he even grabbed Feist for a track – win.

6. The Roots – Undun

If you have never listened to The Roots, you are at a huge disadvantage in life. Seriously go now and purchase some, don’t google it, purchase it and put it on – you will be better in your life for it. They’ve been on my list before on my favourite albums of 2010.

7. Florence & The Machine – Ceremonials

I was really psyched for the release of this album. I remember listening to “What The Water Gave Me” in the summer and it hooked me, that was it. The rest of the album does not disappoint.

8. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Pitchfork gave Fleet Foxes an 8.8 which is pretty high on their very tough scale of music reviews. Despite that (as no Pitchfork review should be a decision one way or the other) they are amazing as is the album – my favourite is the title track itself, just put on Helplessness Blues and go.

9. Black Keys – El Camino

I heard a DJ compare this album to when the White Stripes released “White Blood Cells” because they broke into the mainstream with that album. Although I don’t completely agree with it I can see where the DJ was coming from and know the Black Keys are going to be around for a long time.

10. Feist – Metals

She’s amazing and Canadian. She’s really well known in Canada so she didn’t make it on my Canadian Music You Should Hear but if you have never listened to Feist – go. now.

 And we can’t leave the list without adding the honourable mentions! Including…

• TV On The Radio – Nine Types of Light
• Childish Gambino – Camp
• The Strokes – Angles
• Phantogram – Nightlife (it’s an ep but still counts) – Don’t Move is my favourite song of the year.
• Drake – Take Care
• Talib Kweli – Gutter Rainbows
• Arkells – Michigan Left
• The Dears – Degeneration Street
• Broken Bells – Meyrin Fields

So that’s it! Let me know what you think, I love music and love chatting about it.

 Then there’s the Canucks you hear about everywhere. Justin Beiber is not having a kid with some random chick but has squealing girls following him everywhere, Drake is really talented and is on every TV everytime I turn it on but comeon every Canadian knows he started on Degrassi, and Michael Buble can charm his way out of prison if he had to.

But this blog post isn’t about them, you’ve heard of them, they’re really popular and I’m psyched for them… Well not Nickelback, I urge you to download Nickleblock now. There is a lot of quality incredible music created within this fine country called Canada – here’s some of my favorites aside from the ones that get a lot of the press.

*Note these are all artists that are currently creating music in some sense. The list would be totally different if we’re including defunct musicians.

1. Kos
   I remember buying his first album, then hearing he was quitting music. But thankfully that was not the end of Kos, he came back and he is still making incredible music today. He wrote one of my favorite lyrics of all time too – “Walking down Yonge St on a Friday, can’t follow them gotta do it my way”.
   Recommendation - Crabbuckit - http://youtu.be/MtSzpKiARrI
   Additional viewing – Bedouin Soundclash + Kos - http://youtu.be/UUTD6wrEbgU

1. Kid Koala
   I’m sad that physical CD’s are fading away because I may never hold a new Kid Koala CD in my hand again. His music is also art – Carpol Tunnel Syndrome is one of the best packaged albums I own. He’s opened for Radiohead and Bjork, has played at the last 2 years of Comic Con in San Diego and I remember him winning a ton of turntable competitions when I was in high school 10 years ago.
   Recommendation – Fender Bender - http://youtu.be/jUhnOrXyz6Q

1. Sam Roberts
   An amazing rock outfit filled with traditional rock. There’s something in Sam Robert’s music that is calming and makes me smile. Everywhere I’ve been in Canada Sam Roberts is a consistent level in quality music. he hasn’t seemed to break past the Canadian border though, and that’s a shame.
   Recommendation – Brother Down - http://youtu.be/yz8fACptREI - Live great crowd.

1. Holy Fuck
   Not to be confused with Fucked Up who are also from Toronto and are also awesome. Holy Fuck are an electronic/experimental band from Toronto who have been praised by Pitchfork. They have played Coachella and run the festival gamut and have received much critical acclaim.
   Recommendation – Latin America - http://youtu.be/fd5gVwbRlvk

1. Arkells
   5 boys from Hamilton making evolving music. Their first full album I still have in my car and should be played as a complete album and I believe that every workplace should play Deadlines, it’s important to keep your work on track Also, the cover photo of Jackson Square was taken at a show I was at, Vfest!
   See them live, it’s an experience much like the rest of this list, albums are great but everyone on this list is worth the ticket price.
   Recommendation – Ballad of Hugo Chavez - http://youtu.be/mffhLwsJ0tU - Live!

If it were up to me I would make everyone aspiring to gain Canadian citizenship take a test and also know the following musical artists in addition to the list above –>

Tokyo Police Club, Matthew Good, Tegan & Sara, Trews, Constantines, Crystal Castles, Death from Above 1979 & MSTRKRFT, Hot Hot Heat, Metric, The New Pornographers, The Reason, Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker, The Weakerthans, Hey Rosetta!, The Dears, Bedouin Soundclash, Billy Talent and lastly The Stills – I miss you Stills come back to us.

Also on my Canadian Citizenship test would be knowing who Nardwuar the Human Serviette is. Look it up… but I’m off topic. So that’s my list, if you’re interested in more I’m working of another post of Canadian Bands that aren’t still together. That’d be a doozy of a list.

Let me know your musicians below that everyone should know about. Music is great because there’s always new pieces to listen to. Everyone listens to something different too so let me know, I would love to hear them.

That’s my Grandpa outside of his house in the 70′s. He looks truly happy in the shot. He died about 2 years ago but once I swear I could still feel him around that house.

The picture being posted was very exciting for me. A few months ago Amber Mac had posted about this amazing site and I loved the site and really wanted to participate but didn’t really have anything in mind at the time.

A few months later, my Grandma had been planning on selling her house of over 50 years, a rough time for her but she has made it through now and is settled and adjusting at her new spot. The house sold very quickly and as part of the move she had to scale down her belongings so she kept having us in her family take things every time we were there. For months my car was packed with my stuff I had been keeping there, or things she was getting rid of and one day I was searching through the basement and found a whole chest of pictures – it was a goldmine! In the chest I found pictures from over 100 years of my family, priceless memories including a ton of pictures taken around the house that was now sold.

So on the last day I grabbed a bunch of the photos and held my own “Dear Photograph” photoshoot, it was great going around and taking pictures of a place that had so many memories for my family and that was an end of an era for us. Once I got home I took a look at them all and sent off my fav to the site and they posted it. But there are a few extras so here they are –>

I like the this last one too. That’s my Grandpa + my Mom right before she went to Spain. He’s not as happy as the shot that I ended up with but his daughter was taking off to a foreign country so there’s worry in his face.

I’m a big fan of Dear Photograph now and will keep it in the back of my mind as I wander around the earth now. Who knows, maybe I’ll do another one in 10 years infront of my own house

Great meaning it’s useful, and an enjoyable experience for users and search engines.

Here’s my top 5 pieces that I believe every website should have to ensure a great website.

1. Proper Code.

Your site will not be viewable if it’s not coded, or coded correctly.

There’s a lot of options out there that programmers will talk circles about from Flash, Ajax, Jquery, HTML5 and many other buzz words but whichever road, make sure that the code on your website is compliant and viewable to users, all devices including mobile and (most importantly) search engines.

Do your own research and know that Flash isn’t viewable on Apple devices or indexed (very well) by the search engines. Also know that any text put in images won’t be seen by search engines or text-browsers so there are other ways to ensure that every device will know what the image is.

Any good web developer will know the technology they’re working with and if they don’t? Seriously, find a new developer.

2. Proper Content.

Content is great and what you’re reading right now, essential to any website.

Have you ever heard the expression that “content is king”? I don’t believe it’s necessarily the king but it sure is essential in conveying your message, including your keywords, and speaking directly to your audience. Websites need content and your content should be written for your audience.

There are different words used for different industries and levels of industries viewing the website. Properly formatting your content for the level and industry viewing your website will help the search engines to know who your content is written for. These days, search engines are intelligent enough to not only read, but interpret your content, filter through for keywords and understand what you’re saying.

Not sure what good content looks like? Start reading CopyBlogger, learn from them.

3. Correct Images + Branding.

So now you’ve got your content down the the website coded correctly, you can move onto images and design.

Just plain text on a page is nice, but won’t set you apart from anyone unless it’s been designed with images and branding. Design is captivating and holds users in, sometimes grabbing with eye candy if you’re good enough.

Steve Jobs’ said, “People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” That’s exactly how I feel about design, anyone can make a pretty picture but a web designer is a special mix of pretty + usability.

Ensure that your design not only looks amazing but works amazing too. Remember design is the first impression of your brand so make it a good one.

4. Links.

Think of your website like an island, out in the middle of the ocean surrounded with water.

Your website when you first start out is much like that. No one knows your island exists or how to get to it so you tell a few friends how to take their boat to your island/plane/swim etc. and they tell their friends, word grows and soon every weekend is a party on your island.

Links are the same way. Make sure to tell everyone you know about your website and how to get to it and ask them to link to it. Find any associations you’re affiliated with and have them link to you and so on. Don’t stop after the first week as well, you need to grow your website and links are a great way to consitently grow it by slowly having more links directed at you.

Tip! Links also include social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.). With social media other people are doing the work of linking to you & if they’re talking about you, that’s a huge help!

5. Tracking/Goals.

These days if you don’t know how many people have gone to your site, you’re at a severe loss.

With Google Analytics alone you can pinpoint where the most users are coming from, how long they are spending on specific pages or your whole site, how they navigated to your site and much much more.

If you’re not tracking your site and setting up goals for it, then how do you know the value you may or may not be getting out of it?

Google Analytics doesn’t have to be the solution either, there are many other tracking programs that provide different features out there. I personally enjoy Google Analytics but the point is make sure you’re tracking how your website is doing.

So in closing, there are a lot of other pieces and elements you can work on when putting a website together but I find these the most important today to start you on the right foot. Ensure all 5 of these are properly implemented and you’re on the way to making sure your website is the favorite island hangout

PS. Thanks for reading. This is my first go at this. I'm on Twitter posting awesome
links from other folks and hope by sharing information instead I can help others the
way all the information I've gained has helped me