Marcus' blog

Follow Happy

November 19, 2011 by marcus | 0 comments

This is a sponsored post from Honda, but just so you know, I turn down a lot of advertising requests, but this seemed relevant. Honda has outdone themselves with the use of their YouTube page, featuring various sections, all interactive and very cool, no wonder Honda’s campaign is the work of W+K. It’s called ‘Follow Happy’ and it highlights their way of working, but more importantly, their muse. When Honda is in doubt, happiness is their guide. After all, the pursuit of happiness is the reason anyone does anything.

I did have to do some digging around to actually Follow Happy, but after hunting around it was quite cool to play around with the campaign as a whole (the ‘Experiment’ tab on the YouTube page is quite fun, and a good use of pop-up windows)

Anyway, check out their YouTube page (it’s dope), which starts you off on a journey of happiness with the use of a dog and your computer’s microphone, so make sure to allow access.

October 29, 2011
by marcus
0 comments

iPad 2…I couldn’t help myself

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On my way home from work, I passed the Apple store. Long story short, I bought an iPad 2 – I did think “but I’ve got an 11inch air, it seems kind of redundant” which in some sense is true.

I ended up buying it because I’ve always wanted one and after having a brief fling with the 1st generation of iPad, I thought the we’re enough pros over cons, to name a few; it can act as a second monitor to dual screen with my MacBook, it’s got 32gb so is the perfect place to store my visual portfolio, and the new one isn’t being announced for at least another 4-5 months (hopefully).

That aside, the main reason I thought I’d take the plunge is because of the new iCloud service. One example is that I have the full iWork suite on my phone, laptop and now iPad which all sync together making work really easy to just do for a bit, no matter what device I’m on.

I didn’t but a case because as with everything, there is better and cheaper (or better and the same price) online.

In other news, I’ve started a new website called Style & Creativity which I’m going to properly launch when the theme is tweaked to perfection and I’ve got my first introduction post up, but if you visit the link, you’ll see it’s still not quite there (unless you’re reading this from the future).

September 26, 2011
by marcus
2 Comments

MacBook Air has arrived!

Well, it arrived last Friday – and it’s amazing. At first I barely touched it from the fear it would snap under the pressure of my man fingers, but actually, it’s an extremely solid machine. It feels more solid than my previous Aluminium Macbook (not pro).

The first thing I did was install the bare essential software I needed on it (CS5.5 and Tweetdeck), then I bought Modern Combat: Domination from the Mac App Store to see how it runs games.

It. Is. Fast. It’s only 1.8GHz, but because of the solid state storage, it is lightning quick and the game ran fantastically, even when I open Photoshop, a huge application, the icon doesn’t bounce more than once/twice. I haven’t used Premiere Pro on it yet, so I’m interested to see how it fares editing and exporting, but so far I’m feeling confident that I’ve made the right move for this to be my primary computer.

The only thing I need now is a case! I’ll probably have to pop by the Apple store on the way home.

September 16, 2011
by marcus
0 comments

Taking the plunge on a MacBook Air (11″)

Yup, I’m selling my Unibody Macbook (not Pro) and my first late 2006 Black Macbook and am delving into using an 11 inch Macbook Air as my Primary computer.

Now, those of you that know me will know that I do a lot of processor heavy work like video and photo editing as well as playing the odd game on Steam. I’ve done a lot of research into if this is possible and it seems about half the people say that they cannot be used as a primary computer, and the other half saying that they’re perfectly capable. I believe (and am severely hoping) that they’re perfectly capable.

The old 11″ Macbook Air line was a bit of a let down, but the latest version look very appealing. I’ve spec’d it up to the max: 4GB RAM / 256GB SSD / 1.8GHz i7 processor. This will do just fine.

As for the screen size, it’s perfect for portability, and I have an external monitor to plug it into at home for longer uses. Will I be able to handle the smaller screen? I don’t know. But I will after I get it at the end of the month (custom specs take ages to arrive).

Either way it goes, if I like it or not, I’ll stick up a quick not about it on here so you can avoid making the same mistake, or join me in celebrating an awesome little device with a powerful kick. (I REALLY hope it’s the latter).