Not an an animal portrait apart from, of course, we are all animals! 
Sent from my iPad
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Friday, 28 October 2011
Chimpanzee
Another in the animal portrait series...series ha ha...just something I am doing at the moment. 
Sent from my iPad
Cheetah's Spots
So how do you draw the spots on a Cheetah? I am not sure I know the answer. I know this sounds a stupid question but it is an important one for me. Recently I have started to make generic animal portraits, such as this cheetah drawing. This is just for fun and so the question is just how far do I go with the reality? I love the cleanness of the lines of this cheetah and I feel that any attempt to add spots might distract from this - but a cheetah with out spots is, well not a cheetah. Yet does this matter? I don't know - what I do know is that I like the sleek lines of this wonderful creature and I think I will leave this as it is - minus spots. 
Sent from my iPad
Sunday, 23 October 2011
iCloud and Audiobooks
Don't believe the hype - iCloud doesn't seem to work with audiobooks. In principle you buy music on one iCloud registered product, such as an iPad, and it should appear on all of your other machines, such as and iPhone, iPod etc. However this doesn't appear to apply to audiobooks as I bought one this morning on my iPad expecting it to appear on my iPhone but it didn't. So it would seem for some unknown reason audiobooks are outside of the iCloud regime. I suspect part of the reason may be bandwidth - most audiobooks are huge, the latest George RR Martin book I down loaded was over 1 GB in size and this would effect a lot WiFi hotspots. Whatever the reason this doesn't seem to be mentioned by Apple when plugging the benefits of the iCloud.
Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Elephant
I've been taking my art too seriously over the past few days and in truth it is getting annoying so it was just nice to sit down for ten minutes and knock together a little sketch of an elephant - none of the pressures, self inflicted I'm afraid, to make the likeness just so. Instead it was just for the joy of drawing... And now 'never forget' has just come on the iPod by Take That...suddenly it all seems to fit together. God I am ...well you fill in the gap! 
Sent from my iPad
Autumn
Just a quick thought - one week to go and it will be November and yet the roses in the garden are still blooming - we live in crazy mixed up times. 
Sent from my iPad
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Penguin
So what exactly has a penguin chick got to do with iOS 5? Well nothing actually but I just like this drawing I made. Having lived now with iOS 5 for a few days I am starting to understand how it works and it is true it is a lot better than the previous incarnation. Whether it is better than any other OS out there is not really the issue. iOS 5 is more about consolidating Apple's hold on its customer base rather than innovation. 
I understand that the new iPhone 4S is flying off the shelves despite its lukewarm reception from the geekology who view products that don't have 20 new amazing features as an utmost failure. Apple have contributed to this by their outlandish hyping of their products. If you ever listen to the late Steve Jobs talk you would think that he had a very limited vocabulary centred around the word amazing. In truth the new iPhone builds on the real power behind the Apple success - iTunes or to put it another way - it consolidates - another unword to some of the Apple fan boys. This is not a particularly radical observation but it true nonetheless. You could not have the success of the app word without iTunes and without the apps then smartphones are well, not that smart.
Viewed from this position then iCloud is the next logical step whereby you can integrate more of your life with Apple and iTunes. Which is why it is surprising that Apple haven't found a way of integrating all the AppleID's - perhaps one day but it really makes it confusing when you update to iOS 5 and put in the wrong ID, as I did, and then find you can't buy anything from iTunes because you haven't used your iTunes AppleID.
After all this nonsense it brings me back to the penguin...
Sent from my iPad
Monday, 17 October 2011
iOS 5 updated
Well I have done it and it looks a lot more stable than the other day with the iPad ... This is the first photo taken using the volume button - much better way of doing things. 
I'm on line at:
www.flickr.com/photos/guthlac
http://simonmarchini.posterous.com
I hope you enjoy
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Getting annoyed with iOS 5
Perhaps I have short fuse these days but this so called simple update to iOS 5 is anything but ... the back up is now taking a lot longer - almost as bad as the early days... if anyone should read this - don't update to iOS 5 for a few weeks. Hopefully Apple might have worked out the glitches!
I'm on line at:
www.flickr.com/photos/guthlac
http://simonmarchini.posterous.com
I hope you enjoy
iOS 5 - a bit hit and miss
I am in the process of updating to iOS 5 and at the moment it is a bit hit and miss. My MobileMe doesn't seem to work with the calendar and due to '...high demand we are temporarily limiting the numbers of user moving from MobileMe to iCloud...' so the message says on MobileMe. Deep joy - I thought apple systems just worked seamlessly, actually I know this isn't the case. I decided to update my iPad first just because I thought that. iChat be the case - I think my iPhone will wait a while! I suspect that Stephen Fry's iPhone / iPad etc were updated by Apple especially whilst we of the great unwashed will have to weight a while to get the 'amazing' iCloud and iOS 5 working correctly.
Sent from my iPad
Friday, 7 October 2011
Frank Skinner
A bit of fun - a combination of real world drawing and brushes - I like this. 
Sent from my iPad
SONY NEX 5N - an unwitting tribute to Steve Jobs
In one of those strange juxta positions that history throws up I received my new Sony NEX5N camera on the day that it was announced that Steve Jobs died. On the face of it there would appear to be no connection but to me the user of the camera and ipad,used to write this, ipods etc the connection became very clear as the day wore on.
Most of my recent technological purchases have been from Apple and I have got used to them just working. An example of this would the wireless keyboard I am using with my iPad - switch it on and away you go - what could be simpler.
Now I know what I am about to say is an unfair comparison but I am going to make it. Getting the camera to work properly was a nightmare by comparison. It was almost like the old days of the PC set up, restart and reset were the names of the game. You can just image what Jobs would have made of the process. Just switch it on, plug it in or connect by WiFi to your computer or cloud service and within 5 minutes you would be up and running.
The way that the camera works would also have been radically different as well. The camera has a touch screen about the same size as the iphone and so it is far to compare how the two function. With the iphone there is a clear vision with the NEX5N it is all menus and sub menus and so on. Once you get the camera to work it is a fine machine and promises to be a first rate purchase it is just the usability is so poor when compared to the iphone, which by the way is a camera as well as a phone etc.
So this is my tribute to Steve Jobs a clear giant of the 21st century, remember Apple only really took off when the ipod was launched so it is far to claim that he is a man of the 21st century. A man who ensured that the mass market computer products were both things of beauty , functional, desirable and probably most important for Apple, profitable. He will be missed in oh so many ways and other technology companies still have a long way to go before they are able to produce functioning products to the same standard as those Jobs helped deliver to the world.
Sent from my iPad
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