Category Archives: Blog

Xbox Syndrome

Here’s a warning to all gamers – watch out for Xbox Syndrome. Dr Roger Henderson, of The Sunday Times, writes about “injuries and health problems caused by playing computer and console games”.

Xbox Syndrome

Xbox Syndrome

…I used to call it “Sonic Thumb”.

Mark.

[MP. 26/02/10]

iPhone 3.1.2 Restore Hell


I am going through iPhone Restore Hell at the moment. I have lost the use of my phone for four days – it has been “bricked” by the 3.1.2 Update from Apple. The iPhone rejected the update and now refuses to Restore.

The problem seems to be very widespread and effects Windows XP users only… several solutions have been offered to get the restore working properly, from: holding down Home when connecting the iphone to put it in Restore Mode, to jiggling the buttons to get it into DFU Mode; the usbappl.sys dll has been checked and updated. Every peice of Apple software has been removed and itunes has had a clean install with anti-virus and firewall turned off…

…EVERYTHING has been tried at least twice – and nothing works!

The iPhone hangs on restore saying “Restoring iPhone Software”. After every attempt itunes has to be force-quit – but even after the quit itunes is still running as a process so Windows has to be restarted. My Vaio has been restarted more times in the last three days than in the last three years!

[MP. 13/10/09]

Update: Took it in to Touchwood Apple Store, Solihull, UK, for the second time and they got a new one working for me. The problem is definately Wondows …or definately my Vaio laptop. They were able to Restore/upgrade to 3.1.2 on their Windows bootcamp Mac – A.Ok.

Thanks to those Geniuses I now have an iPhone that works – but I can NEVER EVER recover my Mac iPhone on my Windows machine. Don’t cross the streams…

Mark.

[MP. 14/10/09]

Showreel Update


I’ve just updated the showreel and have added titles and text to explain what is going on. Hopefully the showreel will make a lot more sense now.

I’ve also added credits where appropriate for designers and developers for the major pieces shown. There’s still a lot of cars in the reel but hopefully it’s all still interesting : – )

[MP. 08/09/09]

iPhone video support

There seems to be a problem with the iPhone mp4 videos not playing on iPhones. This is a new problem as they all worked ok when first ‘upped’. It doesn’t seem to be a bandwidth limitation issue from the server; the files are still all there; they all played/streamed ok for a long time. I’m looking in to it and will correct as soon as I find the solution.

my bad. I had turned off plug-in support on my iPhone in order to try and stop Safari crashing so much …with the result that QuickTime video support got turned off as well… : – )
Solution = Settings: Safari: Plug-Ins: ON

Showreel Up


I’ve finally edited and uploaded a showreel of some of the work I’ve done over the past ten years.

The reel starts with the work I did for my Master’s degree in Electronic Graphics; then goes on to Frog-A-Phonics, a kiosk developed for wildscreen @bristol by 422 interactive; several CD-ROMs developed at 422 interactive; and then some of the CD’s and DVD’s I’ve authored at FSNM/Freestyle interactive along with some of the motion graphics and after effects work I utilised in my video editing and post-production work.

I’m thinking of annotating the video as well as posting credits for the screen designs so there may be a new version up soon.

[MP. 31/03/09]