OS X Lion Bootcamp Accidentally Deleting Disk 0 Partition

Last night I was installing bootcamp and if you don't know this already Lion OS X will only allow you to install Windows 7. I'm used to installing Windows XP which is just mashing on the next button. However, this resulted in the deletion of a very important partition which handles the reverting of bootcamp. The mistake I made was selecting the 200MB partition and formatting that vs the actual 200GB partition that I had set for Windows 7 in Bootcamp Assistant. 

In order to fix it you have to do the following:

External Recovery Disk

You'll need to obtain and install an external recovery disk if you do not have an external Lion OS X installer. You can download the installer here but for me I still have my external Lion OS X on a bootable 16GB SD card. Once you have it just boot into it by holding down the ALT key when booting up and then selecting it as one of the options.

Disk Utility

You have to wipe the HD by using the erase function inside of the disk utility. If you try to reset the partitions to 1 partition in the partitions tab Disk 0 will always fail because the partition data was destroyed or corrupted. You have to wipe the entire drive and then recreate a single partition once it's been wiped.

Reinstall Lion OS X

Failure to do this step will result in the loss of the 600 MB partition set aside for the built in recovery mode. That's totally up to you if you don't like Apple eating up 600 MB then skip to the next step.

Time Machine

Run time machine and restore all your data. If you skipped the reinstalling of OS X Lion you'll notice that whenever you boot up and hold down alt that the recovery mode is missing. Personally I have a lot of storage so 600 MB isn't a big deal for me.

Hope that helps someone who made the same mistake or wants to figure out how to get rid of the recovery mode.

When is The Best Time to Sell on Kijiji

The short answer is between March & September but the long answer would be all year round.

One of the greatest things about designing/developing for the web is the exposure to useful tools. One of those tools I use on a regular basis to help me answer client related queries is Google Insight. In this example I applied Google Insight to help me figure out when users are actively querying search terms such as "spring cleaning" & "garage sale" which are the top key phrases that come to mind when I'm thinking about selling my junk.

In the chart below you'll see a series of spikes which relate to the amount of interest. Now I've set it up to show me stats from 2004 to the present and for only Ontario. You'll notice that interest begins to spike at the beginning of March and begins to drop after September.

From personal experience the time between March & September have been the most effective times for me to start posting on Kijiji. I've sold the majority of my electronics, video games, old computers and power tools during this period. I think I ended up selling over $1000+ worth of old things I no longer used or rarely if ever used. It's a great way to declutter and reap something back from your investments.

If you decide to post anything after this period be prepared for longer periods between inquires and actual sales.

A Call To Arms For All Designers & Developers Who Use Flash

The web is unpredictable which makes it very similar to the sea and with the introduction of html5 its a pretty rough sea out there. Especially for Flash developers as it's almost become a witch hunt for anyone who uses flash. The constant jabs by Jobs doesn't make things easier to explain to people who revere's him as a messiah. One who eats the white apple from the forbidden tree of knowledge. It's come to the point where anyone who speaks of Flash is branded a heretic and quickly becomes an outcast. Well if it's outcasts you want than Pirates we'll be. ARRRGH!

"What will you do when HTML5 kills Flash?"

A question I always hear but never understood why it was being asked. You ask questions to seek an answer but, from what I can tell, the people who illicit this type of question are only seeking some kind of emotional response. To that I can only respond by saying I will do nothing. As in I will do nothing differently. I will continue to seek adventure on the high seas, I will continue to search for bigger fishes, I will continue to push the limits of the web and sail into uncharted seas. Where mythical ideas await to be discovered by those brave enough to sail into the eye of the storm. To expect any less of me would be fool hardy.

"A ship in the harbor is safe, 

but that's not what ships where made for."

Fear for the unknown usually stops people from seeking out the required knowledge to use new tools. Honestly, I would rather have more weapons at my disposal than less when going to war on a project. By being able to wear many different hats will grant you more opportunities to pull excrement out of your ass and slap the proverbial "shit" together to form something truly out of this world. The great thing about HTML5 is that it created a reset where everyone has to relearn new things. Thus allowing everyone to be on equal footing. Now is the best time to start your voyage on the web as HTML5 is still being standardized but be warned. This isn't the life for everyone with all the late nights and scrambling to put out fires on the ship's deck.

To everyone else starting or continuing the voyage, "Yo ho, a pirate's life for me."

Drawing Inspiration

I want to dedicate this blog post to the guy who found me on kijiji and bought my drawing table. We met last Friday after work he called me to let me know he was on his way. He sounded very eager to buy my drawing table and I was really curious why but I wasn't the type to pry into his reasonings.

HP Windmill

Loved how the pinwheel animation turned out in this HP banner ad. Just another well built banner ad for Proximity Toronto.

Greg Learns About Hitler

Greg learns about Hitler and the Nazis. This kid is an amazing actor I'm looking forward to watching more of his antics as he grows as an actor.

The Unaimned Arrow Never Misses - Jake Lloyd

Star Wars kid talks about everything that has happened after the 10 years. Wow I can't believe it's been that long...

HP Widget

Where do I begin with this project. So much optimization went into this project to make it look decent without having to up the compression. Reminded me of this Roger's project that I lost on a conference call because I told the client what they didn't want to hear. They wanted to do an effect where a bunch of small little images shot out from a phone. App icon images, stars, confetti, etc. Just a bunch of stuff that would randomly fly out and grow bigger.

The real issue was there wasn't a lot of reused assets which means you're looking at 30+ unique images of varying sizes = very high compression. I explained this in the conference call and the response was you can use code to suppress file size or that the icons are really small so they won't be that big in file size. I rebuked each claim and the last thing I heard was you know what we have someone else who can do it and that was it. Learned a lot that day I can tell you that.

Later on I saw how the ad turned out. High compression and unique images whittled down to 10 or less and reused. Sometimes I think I dodged a bullet there cause I knew it was going to be crap but in the end there is always someone who will give them what they want. This is where I think I lost because I never got contracts again for debating with the client. The old catch 22.

Madeon - Pop Culture Dance Video

Sexy dance routine that'll make your friday.  My new work song. :)

Shaw Red Dot - Banner Ads

In this banner ad example the goal was to show case how fast Shaw's Internet is.  We achieved this by getting the user to interact with the banner. If the user tries to click on the red dot it will quickly move to a randomly different spot. If the user tries it the second time the red dot will magically disappear into smoke. Just another series of banner ads produced for Proximity Toronto.

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