Blackbear - Help (REVIEW)

2015 has been a busy year for Blackbear, he released his debut album Dead Roses, the Dead EP and his sophomore album Help. I was instantly hooked to Blackbear's music after hearing his Teenage Waste EP in 2012 and I have since purchased everything else he has released. "Help" came as a surprise when it was announced a few prior to its release and as a huge fan I instantly pre-ordered it. After giving the album a good listen, here is my honest opinion.

The lyrics consisted of catchy one-liners but they paled in comparison to Blackbear's earlier work. They were not memorable and were easily forgotten after a few listens. I can't help but feel he catered to the typical pop fans who listen to singles and not albums.

The beats were incredibly repetitive and did not go anywhere at all. I was disappointed as Bear has always made amazing instrumentals but this release is a complete let down. Often songs would start off with a looping beat which would not change at all. 

The album has its moments of standout tracks but as a whole It has too many fillers. Standout songs were Oh Lord, Where Was U, Help and Different Ho's. The rest just blended in and had no replay value at all. I'm not sure if he has ran out of ideas from releasing too much material this year or if he simply rushed this album but I think If Blackbear took the 5 strongest songs and rather put them into an EP then it would of been a much stronger release. This is the weakest Blackbear release to date.

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Is Post Hardcore Dead?

The late 2000's and early 2010's saw a massive Post-Hardcore movement with bands such as The Used, Underoath, Asking Alexandria and more leading the pack. Most of the Post-Hardcore bands went on to release career and genre defining albums but that did not last long.

We saw Attack Attack!, Abandon All Ships, Confide, Underoath and Woe, Is Me call it quits. These bands all released great albums but each following album saw a major shift in band members and sound. What caused this.. fame? money? personal differences? I can't say for sure but many bands expressed how tough the touring life was and how little profit was actually made after recording and tours. We all know the impact of piracy and how artists and labels suffer but surely someone has to have made money off touring or merch, maybe the label?

Our favorite acts like Bring Me The Horizon, Of Mice & Men, The Devil Wears Prada, We Came As Romans changed their sound drastically to the point where they did not even sound like the same band we first heard. Many people lost interest but the bands gained new mainstream fans who wanted hit after hit. The biggest offender here would be Bring Me The Horizon as they no longer play heavy music, instead they have moved onto pop rock, electronic and easy going metal and also completely alienated their core fans and are now the poster boys for pop rock.
More recently these bands have opted out of heavy chugging and breakdowns choosing to rather fill songs with 2000 era "Nu Metal" riffs and grooves, I can't help but feel like we've all heard this too much before and that the bands should definitely not be bringing it back at this point in time.

While most of the bands we used to like are no longer on our playlists due to musical changes we have to thank A Day To Remember, August Burns Red, Dance Gavin Dance and I See Stars for sticking to their guns. Is Post-Hardcore dead? What will the next bandwagon be? You be the judge.

Top Rap Albums of 2015... So Far

2015 has been a great year for rap and hip hop. We have seen new releases from Drake, A$AP Rocky, Big Sean and more. Some of these artists have actually released career defining and game changing albums. Lets have a look at some of the best and worse releases.

Best Releases

I chose these because they offered something new for each artist and sounded unlike any other rap albums released in the last few years.

• Drake - If You're Reading This Its Too Late
• Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly
• A$AP Rocky - At.Long.Last.A$AP
• Logic - The Incredible True Story
• Action Bronson - Mr. Wonderful
• Mac Miller - GO:OD A.M.
• Travis Scott - Rodeo
• Big Sean - Dark Sky Paradise
• Dr Dre - Compton (A Soundtrack)

Worst Releases

These are not terrible albums, they are just not up to par with other albums or the artists previous albums.

• Tyler, The Creator - Cherry Bomb
• Kid Ink - Full Speed
• Future - DS2
• Drake & Future - What A Time To Be Alive
• Meek Mill - Dreams Worth More Than The Money
• Lil Wayne - Sorry For The Wait 2
• Tyga - The Gold Album
• Hopsin - Pound Syndrome

The year is not over, Kanye West, Machine Gun Kelly and more are still scheduled to drop albums later this year. This is arguably the best year for rap and hip hop in ages. 

What are some of your best and worst albums of the year?

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How to Turn Updates Off in Windows 10

Are you tired of Windows 10 using all your bandwidth and data? Windows does not allow you to turn off updates but I'm here to show you how to turn them off via the services under the hood.

Watch this video to see how to do it!

Dell Latitude 3550 Laptop Review & Video

Dell Latitude 3550 is small business and home user laptop released in 2015. This particular model sports a i5 5200U CPU, 8GB DDR3 Ram, 1TB Hard Drive and a Nvidia Geforce 820M Graphics Card. Let's have a look at the Pros and Cons,

Pros:

• Full HD 1920 x 1080 Display
• Fast i5 CPU
• Slim Design
• Fairly lightweight
• Well built and comfortable keyboard

Cons:

• Matte Design gathers fingerprints easily
• Poor Battery Life
• Cheap trackpad design
• No SSD Hard Drive.

Overall it is a good laptop and not bad for the price. The system is capable of some light gaming with newer games but can cause the system to get very hot. Recommend this for home users who use web browsing, media and light gaming.

Watch the Review Below:

What People Around The World Eat For Breakfast

Throughout the world, breakfast is an important cultural tradition associated with the start of a new day. Because breakfast is such an important meal, many countries have developed their own unique culinary delights to begin each day. Below a list of breackfast in:

America: Eggs, English muffins, toast, cereal, tea, coffee, milk, bacon or sausage, hash browns, and fruit and fruit juice.

Canada: Pancakes and Canadian maple syrup, Canadian bacon, eggs, English muffins, toast, cereal, tea, coffee, milk, hash browns, and fruit and fruit juice.

United Kingdom: Tea and coffee, toast, bacon, sausage, grilled kidneys, eggs, grilled tomato and mushrooms, oatmeal or cold cereal, smoked fish, buns, crumpets, and brown bread with butter, honey, jam, or marmalade.

Russia: Hot tea, breads such as black bread, sausage, fried eggs, cucumber pickles, finger sandwiches made with ham and cheese, lox on whole-wheat bread, Kasha (cereal) and tvorog (soft curd cheese) are all popular breakfast foods.

Australia: Eggs, toast with butter and jam, cereal with milk, and tea or coffee. Spaghetti or baked beans and bacon on top of toast is also a popular morning meal

China: Mainly rice with a bit of vegetables and meat.

Central America: A variety of egg dishes, chorizo and other sausages, tortillas, pan dulce (sweet bread), fresh fruit and fruit juices, and fried plantains. Chocolate beverages are popular for breakfast. Refried beans, fried rice and tortillas are also part of the meal.

South America: South Americans enjoy a light breakfast. Foods can include coffee with milk, pan dulce, Medialunas, (small croissants) and tea or yerba mate.

Turkey: Turkish breakfasts can include: tea, coffee, bread, softened butter and honey, su bregi (noodle pastry filled with soft white cheese and parsley,) boiled eggs, black olives, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

Israel: Western breakfasts are popular as well as yogurt, herring, cucumbers, tomatoes, and fruits.

France: Coffee with milk, espresso, hot chocolate with tartines, slices of baguette with jam, black bread; scrambled eggs with mushrooms and tomatoes.

Netherlands: Poached eggs with ham placed on toast with cheese or bread and butter.
Germany: Bread rolls or toast with butter, honey, or jam, ham or sausage, soft boiled eggs, and coffee.

Switzerland: Sliced meats, cheese, yogurt, prepared fruit, butter, croissants, and breads and rolls.

Greece: Bread, cheese, fruit, and coffee

Italy: Brioche (type of croissant) and a cappuccino or coffee.

Belgium: Bread with coffee or tea, fruit juice, cereals, soft boiled eggs, currant loaves, croissants, sandwiches, and almond paste cakes.

Sweden: Bread with margarine and cheese, smoked ham, or turkey, yogurt with muesli and banana, and cereal.

Ireland: Fried meats, fried bread, white and black puddings, and Irish soda bread.

Scotland: Oatcakes, scones, and Arbroath smokies (small haddock) porridge, and brown bread and butter.

India: Foods vary from region to region. Popular meals can include eggs with spices, potatoes, and onions, coffee, fruits and yogurt, appam (thin rice pancakes filled with spiced meat or potatoes and vegetables), idi-appam (rice noodles with sweet coconut milk or a meat curry), idli (small steamed cakes made with rice and split peas) and puttu (crushed rice and coconut steamed and served with bananas and milk). The Hindi breakfast dish khichri is made with rice, lentils, and spices.

Breakfast is a ritual practiced around the world. The unique cultural differences make breakfast an important and delicious culinary tradition.

How Technology Has Changed Our Lives

If you take a look at the people that you see around you, what do you notice? Is there something different about the way we talk, act, or carry on our business? One thing you may notice when observing society today is that almost everyone you see can be found using some form of the latest technology. Whether it be something as simple as a cell phone, or something as trendy as a tablet pc; anywhere you look in today's society, you are bound to find someone attatched to their favorite high-tech gadgets. With this being said; has technology changed the face of society and the culture of humanity forever?

It seems as if only yesterday, it was a luxury to own such a fine piece of technology, such as a laptop. The much bulkier models of yesterday were not as convenient as the condensed versions we know today as net books. A cell phone was something hard-wired into your vehicle, only accessable in emergency situations and the subscription fee attached to the service was highly overpriced. Now, owning a cell phone is more like a necessity that most people cannot live without and most laptops fit conveniently into any purse or briefcase, and in some instances, can even fit easily in your back pocket!

Instead of talking to eachother; people are texting instant messages back and forth over a cellular frequency. Parents that work in another part of the country and soldiers at war for the sake of our freedom and national security are tucking in their children over the World Wide Web on live video confrences. The way people communicate with eachother has totally changed in a way our ancestors would have never imagined. Beginning with crude pictures of the stars and sky carved into the damp walls of some ancient cave; to get a message through to our friends and business collegues, we now send words through time and space, itself!

Technology may have changed the culture of the world for the better and has totally changed the way society acts and functions in a number of ways. However, we must also look at the negative ways that technology has affected our society as well.

The courtesy that we have for one another seems to have nearly disappeared. If you happen to be in the grocery store, you will surely notice a clutsy tech-head mistake a fellow shopper for the corner they thought they were manuevering around. Eating out at a restaurant can easily be turned into an unexpected and one-sided eaves-dropping session that you cannot block out. Anyone can also probably remember a time where being cut-off by someone using a mobile phone nearly resulted in an automobile accident.

Depending on how a person looks at this situation, the opinions that they form may differ in many ways. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice the difference however. Technology has definitely changed society and culture forever. Whether it has changed for the best, or changed for the worst, is really determined by you. 

How To Find The Best Deals on Computers

Whenever you start needing to buy a new computer, you always need to make certain you are receiving the very best deal. No one wants to give more than they may ought to. However, with so many numerous retail stores along with online retail outlets as well as a lot of dissimilar types of computer systems in all pricing structures, finding the most excellent offers can really be a challenging task. Here are a few standards to assist you.

Black Friday is traditionally the day which pcs get discounted big time. You really can on occasion obtain the newest computers for significantly less than they may routinely cost, but of course, you ll be required to wrangle with the huge crowds. Even if you can t make it to the retail stores on Black Friday, the whole holiday season is more often than not full of great offers so keep your eyes wide open. You can additionally search online for more PC specials.

The typical person buys pcs that have far more optional features than they in fact need. It s because of aggressive salesman and also for the reason that the majority of people do not have knowledge of all the specifications for your computer systems. Subsequently, before hand, construct a record of exactly what you truly need. What is it that will you be using it for? This method will indeed help you really remain focused so that you do not spend more than you have to.

Inquire with your local PC specialist for recommendations
Why not try to find some information from somebody who knows more with reference to computer systems? Through communicating with your area Houston computer specialist, you perhaps, would better identify with what your personal computer requirements are and also what alternatives are accessible in your budget. The very best computer service providers will be able to help you get the most suitable computer systems for your personal or business requirements.

Search for rebate deals
Computer producers are always presenting exceptional reimbursement bargains on their computer systems. One can find a few distinctive varieties of refund offers: the immediate refund and the mail-in rebate. These reimbursement offers allow you to obtain dollars back, helping you to save big on your PC services. Merely make certain you keep an eye on all stipulations of the mail in reimbursement carefully to guarantee you qualify for it.
Think about repairing and upgrading your old PC

Perhaps you don t need to drop the funds on a new-fangled computer after all. You may be able to have a Houston PC services firm restore and upgrade your older computer to get it to run as if brand new. If your PC is running slowly, the company might be equipped to fix what ever is amiss with it. The specialist may possibly also upgrade it with more RAM and added hard drive room.

The fact is you should indeed be able to locate a PC that fits your requirements and additionally fits your budgets. There are reasonably priced selections beginning at just a couple hundred dollars. Furthermore never overlook, old computer systems can have fresh vivacity injected into them if you utilize a Houston computer services firm resolve all the bugs as well as upgrade components as needed.

Internet Marketing Tips & Tricks

Internet Marketing can be a great way to earn a substantial income. But unless you know how to be successful at internet marketing, you may be missing out on an even bigger income. What you are going to read in the following article will help you have a successful career in the internet marketing field.

Include a guest book on your website for people to sign at the bottom of your homepage. If a customer comes on your site and signs a guest book, it makes them feel like they have a stake with your company. Improving the personalization standards on your website is important to hold onto customers.

Take the necessary time to learn about web design. There's plenty of information online about CSS or HTML that will help you in web design. Take 30 minutes out of the day to work on your site and you will gain knowledge.

Make use of all of the social media sites for your internet marketing campaigns. Create a like button for Facebook, a share button to Twitter and a Google+ button, as well. These buttons should be on all of your product pages! This will help to spread the word of the products and services that you are marketing.

Facebook is a free way to enhance your Internet marketing. Since Facebook is so widely used and massively customizable, you can reach out to a much broader audience while maintaining the personality of your business. This also makes it easier for people on the go to find vital information about your business.

Youtube is quickly becoming one of the fastest ways to provide ads to the public for your internet marketing. The user generated network allows for you to create your ad that is thrown onto a YouTube video only if it has reached a certain demographic and level of popularity.

A great tip for Internet marketing is to incorporate chat into your web site. Chatting is a great way to connect with people and resolve problems in real time. All you have to do is select a chat program, put a button on your web site, and train someone to use it.

Take advantage of the search engines, in order to find out who is linking to you. Many search engines have special codes that you can type before the website, which will give you different information. For example, typing "link:" before including your URL, will give you a list of all of the websites that are linking to yours.

When marketing a product or business online, make good use of logos and branding. Having an easily remembered and distinguishable logo will help people remember your business and help them connect your products to your company. People tend to remember pictorial logos better than the name of the company alone.

In important tip regarding internet marketing is to attempt to use pay-per-click programs. This is a good thing to try because it is the fastest way to improve your company's search engine results. There are multiple programs that you can sign up for that include pay-per-click advertising. Be sure to do your research. You'll be sure to find the one that best suits your company.

For products that do not sell or for ones that are harder to sell, try setting up a bartering system with your customers. Allow them to set the price of what they'd pay for these items using e-mail or a web form, and see if it's to your liking so that you can finally sell these kinds of items.

There's no question that internet marketing can make you a ton of money. The overload of information out there can make it seem like a difficult, overwhelming process. Internet marketing is just like the sales process in the bricks-and-mortar world. Find a few reputable sources of guidance, focus your efforts, and you will be well on your way to success.
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A$AP Rocky - At.Long.Last.A$AP (REVIEW)

A$AP Rocky is a Harlem rapper and member of the A$AP Mob group.
To date he has released two full length albums, mixtape and has had a large number of features on other rappers songs. Rocky decided to drop his new album titled At.Long.Last.A$AP early, which seems to be the "In Thing" these days. He has definitely turned down a bit more on this one and gone for a more trippy sound.

Things I liked:

• Wide vocabulary when it came to lyrics.
• Clean and crisp production.
• Variety of instrumentals crossing many genres, not just rap.
• Good flow of songs and tracks fitted in the right places.
• Impressive list of features.
• Great artwork (Tribute to A$AP Yams)

Things I didn't like:

• Repetitive beats/instrumentals.
• Repetitive lyrics 
• Songs were too long and could have been cut shorter.
• Kanye West feature was pointless and featured really terrible lyrics that did not fit with the song theme.
• Too many songs: while it was good to see 18 songs, at least 5 felt like pointless fillers. If Rocky cut out those fillers it would be a better listen.

Final Thoughts

Do I like the album? Yes, its a good follow up to Long.Live.A$AP.

Would I listen to the full album again? No, but I do have a handful of songs that will be on repeat (the first half of the album). Fans will be impressed and will most likely enjoy the songs. I feel that Rocky should have made more "Bangers" because that is where he shines, there are just too many chilled songs which end up leaving you bored.

Windows 10 editions unveiled

Windows 10 is set to launch within the next few months, and Microsoft has now shared more details on the Windows 10 editions.

Microsoft said it designed Windows 10 to deliver a more personal computing experience across multiple devices.

Windows 10 will power a broad range of devices, including PCs, tablets, phones, Xbox One, Microsoft HoloLens, and Surface Hub.

Windows 10 editions

Microsoft will offer various Windows 10 editions.

“These different editions address specific needs of our various customers, from consumers to small businesses to the largest enterprises.”

• Windows 10 Home is the consumer-focused desktop edition. It offers a familiar and personal experience for PCs, tablets, and 2-in-1s. Windows 10 is also coming to the Xbox, giving games and gamers access to the Xbox Live gaming community, enabling the capture and share of gameplay and giving Xbox One owners the ability to play their Xbox One games from any Windows 10 PC in their home.

• Windows 10 Mobile is designed to deliver the best user experience on smaller, mobile, touch-centric devices like smartphones and small tablets. It has the same Windows apps that are included in Windows 10 Home, as well as the new touch-optimized version of Office.

• Windows 10 Pro is a desktop edition for PCs, tablets, and 2-in-1s. It is similar to Windows 10 Home, but offers many extra features to meet the needs of small businesses.

• Windows 10 Enterprise builds on Windows 10 Pro, adding advanced features designed to meet the demands of medium and large organisations. Active Software Assurance customers in Volume Licensing can upgrade to Windows 10 Enterprise as part of their existing Software Assurance benefits.

• Windows 10 Education builds on Windows 10 Enterprise, and is designed to meet the needs of schools – staff, administrators, teachers and students. This edition will be available through academic Volume Licensing, and there will be paths for schools and students using Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro devices to upgrade to Windows 10 Education.

• Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise is designed to deliver the best customer experience to business customers on smartphones and small tablets. It will be available to our Volume Licensing customers.

Microsoft said it is making progress with Windows 10, and is on track to make it available within the next few months.

Microsoft will offer the full versions of Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Mobile, and Windows 10 Pro as a free upgrade for qualifying Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year after launch.

6 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic

Ok guys, I wanted to dive into something that we are all after when it comes to designing websites, and that is making money by increasing traffic to your website.
These are 6 ways I get website traffic for a variety of sites I monetize personally. 

1) Target your page 2-3 organic rankings 

Page 2 – 3 is useless for traffic forget about it! Nobody looks through those pages, If you are on those pages you might as well be on page 74 and page 469. But did you know you can usually give your internal pages that are ranking on page two and three a quick boost just by playing with your internal linking?

Use Google Analytics, webmaster tools and semrush to identify the terms and pages that are on page two and three. Write them all down.. Organization is key here... after you find potential targets you need to find pages on your site that have some good juice to toss at those pages.

You can use open site explorer and look at the DA and PA.. imo they are crap metrics that can be easily rigged but when you are dealing with your own site they should give you a good idea of what pages are solid.. well as long as you aren’t spamming your own site! You can do this in 2 seconds by entering your main URL in OSE and then look at the top pages tab. 

Once you have identified your strongest pages drop some links on those pages to your pages that are sitting on Google page 2 and 3.. this works good for long tail keywords that need just a little nudge. Smart internal linking is something 99% of people forget to do and it makes zero sense as there are a lot of missed opportunities here. Take small steps and don’t just drop a lot of internal links to a single page at once, make small changes and see how the SERPS react - it's all about that testing and optimizing guys. 


2) Use PPC copy from top companies in your page descriptions

Page descriptions don’t mean anything for SEO! You could include your keyword in them but it isn’t going to help your rankings. A lot of people will say to include the keyword in the description anyway to help with the click through because the person is likely to click on the page if they see the same keyword they just searched for.

It makes sense but if you look at some descriptions they just look so awkward with the keyword slapped in there.. Nobody is going to be impressed and want to click on some site just because it includes a keyword.. I get all my description copy ideas from people that are spending crazy money testing ads... PPC advertisers!

I will do a Google search related to the topic of the page I am writing a description for and look at the top PPC ads. Keep in mind here these advertisers are spending heaps of money split testing copy and they aren’t just pulling random lines of copy out of their ass! They value their money too much to do that.. so I look at the best ads and get my description copy there. PPC ads on top are spending the most and have the best click through so it is a good source of copy that attracts people to make them want to click.

Try it... A lot of people have good rankings but their descriptions suck so bad nobody clicks on their page - Top ranks are worthless unless they entice people to click on them.


3) Make list posts that feature sites you want links and traffic from

This is easy to do for any niche... Make a list of the best websites that you want to try to get links on because of referral traffic and not SEO, I call this making suck-up posts.. This can be done in any niche.

Example: if you have a website that features funny pictures of dogs make a list of all the top sites you would kill to get a link from and that has visitors you would love to have check out your website.. Now create a blog post that has a very broad topic so you can include every site you are interested in - “15 Blogs All Dog Lovers Need to Read Daily” there ya go.. Simple as that!

Make sure you link out to each one (and don't no-follow them) – seriously, so many people are worried about losing link juice.. Guess what? No-following all your outbound links or even not linking out makes you look suspicious! The name of the SEO game is looking natural.. Do the biggest sites in the world link out? Yes.. Do they no-follow everything? No.

Create a good blog post, don’t hire a “native” to write a $5 article you will just be wasting your time.. spend $$ and get a great blog post that will impress everyone you include in it.

Once you publish it contact all of the websites you included in your list.. Email them.. Use the contact form on their site.. Tweet them.. Facebook them.. Don’t worry about bothering them! They won’t see it as you pestering them once they discover that you are doing it to let them know that you featured them. Think about it for a minute.. they are after links and exposure just like you are so by giving them a link they are going to feel like they have to return the favor. They will often write a blog post telling their readers that they were featured and named as a blog to read.. Stroke their ego and get a link and mention. It is a niche related link and can push traffic to your site also.


4) Sponsor an Infographic

This is one of the easiest ways to get a link on any site in your niche that you want. Infographics are the best and every website owner loves them! What they don’t like is the cost associated with getting them done.. in the offline world companies pay $2k+ for infographics. You can use this to work your way onto any site in your niche..

Reach out and offer to sponsor an infographic. Tell them you will handle everything from the concept to the design. You will need to put out some effort and spend about $150.. here is how you can do this:

Find a site you want a referral link form - Target the best of the best.. email them and tell them you are creating an infographic and would be happy to co-brand it. This means you will include your logo and website address along with theirs on it. You have to have this step figured out before you move on.. you need to get a verbal agreement and make sure they are on board before you move forward. 

There isn’t a site that will pass up a branded infographic. Now a lot of people will create infographics and send them to any site they can find in hopes they publish them. The market is flooded with infographics and website owners don’t want to publish the same infographic that 100 other sites are! If you are offering to brand it in their name they know it is more exclusive and if other sites pick it up they might even get links out of it.

Once you have a site on the hook find a good topic to create an infographic on., the easiest way to do this is to find a very popular blog post to take the date from. I will put in popular blogs related to the niche I am targeting into open site explorer and click on the top pages tab to see what posts have the most links pointing to them., blog posts with a lot of links tend to mean it's a hot topic and the people looking for info in the niche liked it! I will look for list type posts that I can hand over to a designer and have turned into an infographic.. I don’t have time to research content for hours and I want this as hands free as possible. I will find a good popular blog post that I can see being turned into an infographic and well received.

There are plenty of designers here on BHW that will do an infographic for $100 - $150 and then you have freelancer and odesk to source additional talent. I tend to stick to BHW designers because freelancer and odesk is mostly full of crap. Look at recent reviews on BHW and test a couple guys. The great thing about just handing over a list style blog post is the hard part (the content) is already done. 

Once the design is done (make sure it is branded to look good – take it a step further and have the designer create it using the colors of the site you are doing it for) reach out and get it into the website owners hand.. I have never had to ask for a link and you don’t want to sound overly desperate saying something stupid like “don’t forget to link to me man” – it should just happen and don’t look for a spammy anchor text.. you can get naked url and brand links this way but if you think you are going to get a “infographic provided by buy garcinia cambogia online” you might as well not do this. The link is good because it will be niche related but if you create a good infographic the referral traffic will be your gold.


5) Sign up for every single newsletter in your niche

Getting links on top sites in your niche isn’t hard if you just approach it differently than the other sheeple.. everyone else is sending out copy and paste messages that all say the same crap. They offer a 500 word unique article and ask for a link.. forget that noise. No serious website owner is going to respond or welcome that offer and if a site does it isn’t one you want a link from anyway.

Most websites have a newsletter or some list you can subscribe to.. sign up for every single one you can find! You are going to get a alot of emails so set up a separate email address but make sure you keep it on your domain.. so if you use info@yoursite as your mail email set something like hello@yoursite for this.. DO NOT use something like spam@ or newsletter@ - any smart website owner will sniff this out and know what you are up to.

Every time you get a new newsletter read through it in 3 seconds and reply to it and compliment some point.. “That was great – I totally agree about (whatever) because (your point)” – and also start to tweet out blog posts from the site., they will start to see that you are replying to their newsletters (nobody does this) and sharing their stuff on social media.. this is building a relationship.

After you do this for a few weeks include a pitch in one of your replies to their newsletter.. “I was actually just writing a blog post about (the topic you are replying about) and wanted to know if you would like to publish it on your website?”

This is such a casual guest post request.. It isn’t annoying or spammy like 99% of the other ones.. It will stand out and they will identify you as the person that has been communicating with them and promoting their content!

Approach this like you would a girl you want to marry and not just sleep with.. You have to wine and dine and put in some effort. You aren’t going right to the bedroom. If a girl drops her pants right away she is dirty!.. just like a blog is dirty if they let anyone guest post! But the effort is worth it when you land that post and get a niche link that will kick back referral traffic and give you a SEO boost.


6) Publish one blog post daily that targets a low search volume long tail keyword

Everyone is on the long tail keyword bandwagon these days but most will skip over a keyword that has a low search volume of 20 searches.. they think it isn’t worth going after but I will tell you it is! The key is to target one every single day.. most people skip them over so the competition is low.. you can often rank with just good on site optimization.

I make sure the long tail is used in the title, in the first part of the content and a couple more times in the content. IMG ALT tag and H2 tag to round it off.. since you are going this daily make sure to interlink correctly. 

Being consistent comes into play after some time.. But imagine if you targeted a kw daily that “only” has a monthly search volume of 20.. After 1 year you would be targeting about 260 keywords if you did it Mon - Fri every week.. 20 x 260 = 5,200 VERY TARGETED searches a month.. If your on site optimization is up to scratch done properly you will be ranking on top for all of these. 

This type of traffic will do better than more general keywords because these very low volume long tails are extremely targetted! When you think of the big picture this is such an easy thing to take action on.. If you can’t afford to outsource the article daily just write it first thing in the morning.. get up 15 min early to get it done.. Just do it! This is such an easy way to increase your traffic but not with just any traffic.. this is very targeted. Once you start to make money increase to 3-5 of these low search volume long tails. Most people just see the big search volume and don’t want to put the effort into the low volume stuff.. I’ll clean house with that stuff all day long.

Remember all of these can be scaled up with some employees then you can really get cooking.. but as always don't half ass those employees!

Hope some of you find this useful.. I want to hear your feedback on this guys and would love to see others post one of your tips for increasing traffic, let’s turn this thread into a pot of gold to help each other! Ciao for now..

From First To Last - Dead Trees: Comeback or not?

When From First To Last announced they were making a comeback and recording a new EP I was beyond excited. I first started listening to the band in 2005 when I heard their debut album "Dear Diary, My Teen Angst has a Body Count" and even though they underwent many line-up changes I still remained a loyal fan.

So a few weeks after the announcement they decided to recruit Spencer Sotelo from Periphery as the vocalist for the EP, I must admit I mixed feelings since I love both Spencer and Matt's vocals, in fact I think Matt Good is the best vocalist that FFTL has ever had. With my mixed feelings in hand I was still optimistic as this could potentially bring a new fresh sound to the band. In November 2014 the band announced the new album would be called Dead Trees and that it would be a full length album instead of a EP. I Finally managed to get my hands on the album in April 2015 and these are my thoughts...

The album starts off with a rather unnecessary intro which leads into a heavy track called "Straight to the Face". Both of these tracks sound nothing like FFTL and combined last just shy of two and a half minutes. Next is a track called "M8 Meh", this sounds more like a FFTL song with some heavier elements. The album Title track "Dead Trees" is an instant classic with a memorable sing-a-long chorus, I can see this being played in their future live sets. "Black and White" tries quite hard to be catchy with its predictable sappy lyrics but it does offer a great instrumental. The album slows down with "Back to Hannalei" and really showcases Spencer's superb vocals, its one of the better tracks on the album in my opinion. Things get heavy with "Never in Reverie" and "2 11" but these tracks don't really offer anything memorable and forgotten when the next track starts. "Electrified" comes through with a pop-metal sound and even some Slipknot influences, I really liked this bouncy track. The final song " I Don't Wanna Live in the Real World" reminds me of The Used with their usual pop acoustic sound but does contain come comedic catchy lyrics. As a added bonus FFTL re-recorded "Note To Self", "Ride the Wings of Pestilence" and "The Latest Plague" with Spencer on vocals and Wow, I was impressed. Spencer nailed the songs and brought a fresh sound to them.

Overall I found the album to be average at best. It had its moments but I don't see myself revisiting this album as a whole like I would with Dear Diary or Heroine. I can however say that I will definitely have a few of these tracks on repeat. Spencer does a great job on vocals but I honestly feel the album would of sounded more like a FFTL album with Matt Good on vocals. To me this does not really sound like a FFTL record, in fact it sounds more like a side project. A lot of the songs on here fall short of being memorable and often sound the same. I really hoped for a great comeback record but unfortunately it did not live up to all the hype.

If I had to put a rating on this album it would be a 4/10.

How to run GTA V on your Laptop

Trying to run GTA V on your Laptop? The good news is that you can. You don't need to go out and buy a expensive desktop computer or spend hundreds of dollars on upgrades as the game has been optimized for even the most entry level gaming systems. You will however need a fairly beefy system to achieve playable performance.  These settings will also work for most desktop computers.


Minimum GTA V System Requirements (Desktop):

• Intel Q6600 Quad Core 2.4GHz
• 4GB DDR2/3 RAM
• Nvidia 9800GT or AMD HD 4870
• 120GB SATA/SSD Hard Drive

Minimum GTA V System Requirements (Laptop):

• i5 4210U CPU (1.7GHz or higher)
• 8GB DDR3 RAM
• Nvidia GT730M or AMD Radeon R7 M265 Graphics Card.
• 120GB SSD Hard Drive or 120GB SATA Hard Drive.

Here's the settings I used to achieve a constant 30FPS with playable performance.
(Using Dell 5548 Laptop)

These settings provide a good looking playable experience with minimal lag in most areas. If you own a i7 laptop you may be able to bump up these settings a bit more but I would stick with these to achieve a constant FPS of 30. Please note that you may also use these settings if you have a low-mid end desktop computer.

Got any questions or need help? 
Post them below.

Download Proline System Drivers

Proline is a Computer Brand sold in South Africa. They offer a wide range of laptops, desktops and point of sale units. As a IT Engineer I often have to re-install laptops and always struggle to find the drivers as the components are not manufactured by a mainstream company. 

The drivers can be found be found at the following two links. Please note that you might have to convert the language to English, this can be done using Google Chrome Internet Browser.

Proline Laptop & Desktop Drivers

Proline Point of Sale Drivers

Dell Inspiron 5548 Laptop Review

The Inspiron 5548 laptop is one of the newest mid-range releases from Dell and replaces the 2014 Inspiron 5547. It sports a slimmer design compared to the previous Inspirons as well as some impressive specs. If you are looking for a well built laptop with great overall performance then you have found the right system.

Under the hood

• Intel i5 5200U 2.2GHz CPU (2 Cores with Hyper Threading)
• 8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
• 1 Terabyte Western Digital Blue Hard Drive (5400RPM) 
• ATI 2GB R7 M265 Graphics Card
• High Definition 15.6" Non-Touch LED Screen (1366x768)
• Full Numerical Keyboard
• MaxxAudio Speakers
• Multi Gesture Touchpad
• 1 USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, SDCard slot , LAN, Audio Jack and HDMI Connection.

The laptop is sturdy and well built, the screen lid is covered with brushed silver aluminium while the rest of the body is covered in hard matte plastic. Even though it is covered in plastic it does not feel cheap, it is definitely built to last. This system falls inbetween the Regular and Ultrabook range.

I really enjoyed typing on the keyboard as it fell solid and comfortable. My favorite thing about this keyboard is that it is very spacious and gives you plenty of room to type. Another great addition is the new Multi Gesture touchpad which is a first for Dell, it closely resembles the touchpads on Apple Macbooks. It does however not come close to Apple's as it can be unresponsive and sticky at times.

I was completely taken back by the performance of this system, it handled all the games I threw at it and effortlessly handled daily tasks like Word processing, internet browsing and watching movies. I found the battery life to be average at best - it lasted 2 hours when gaming and about 6 hours when performing my daily tasks. If you want great off charge battery time you will need to enable all power saving settings and stay away from the games. If you are going to play games make sure you have the charger plugged in to allow maximum performance.

Hard drive performance is average and is nothing to boast about, but what else would you expect from a 5400RPM drive? I purchased a Samsung EVO 256GB SSD and cloned the system, the difference was night and day. The laptop took 30 seconds to boot with the stock hard drive and only 5 seconds with the SSD. If you want to improve this systems performance by 50% I highly recommend ditching the stock hard drive and installing a SSD.

Windows 8.1 Single Language (64 bit) comes pre-installed as the operating system and supports a upgrade to Windows 8.1 Professional if you purchase a upgrade key. You can compare versions here. Microsoft Office 2013 and McAfee trial software comes re-installed but can be removed or purchased. You will be happy to know that there is no annoying bloatware besides the regular Dell Backup and Registration software.

Good for Gaming?
Being a avid gamer I just had to add this section in. The ATI R7 M265 may be a mobile graphics card but it sure packs some serious punch. I played Battlefield 4, Counter Strike Go, GTA IV, Watch Dogs and Fifa 14 at Medium to High settings with no problems at all.
I have to mention that the laptop did get quite hot after an hour of gameplay, it reached 60-75 Degrees Celcius which according to Dell is safe. I would highly recommend purchasing a cooling pad to provide some extra cooling and ventilation.

Pros	Cons
Great gaming performance	Average Battery Life
Lightweight and Portable	No DVD Writer
Comfortable Keyboard	LED Screen could be better
Solid design	No SSD Hard Drive

I give this laptop a 7/10.

What do you think of laptop? do you like it do you hate it? Leave your comments in the section below.