Steve Litchfield

Thirty years ago, searching the Internet was more a case of finding a web site you knew about by looking for it in Yahoo! - then a manually curated hierarchical directory, with categories and sub-categories. Twenty years ago, the first decent search engines had appeared, led by Google (to 'Google' something became a verb), with minimal page furniture, no bloat, no adverts. Just search matches that were accurate and relevant, fed by a few keywords that you typed in. Yahoo's directories were still used by many, plus DMOZ, started by the people now behind the likes of the Firefox browser. Ten years ago, searching the Internet was still search-engine-driven, though with adverts and sponsored panels here and there. Monetisation was beginning to happen. The start of a slippery slope? In 2025, a simple Google search will now typically get you a full page of 'sponsored results', made to look exactly like search results and thus capturing most peoples' clicks. To those w...

Simple enough, you'd think. The moon lights up our skies most nights (cloud and location permitting) and it's always tempting to snap the atmosphere, especially hoping to capture some of the detail that our eyes naturally perceive. Except that it's almost impossible. While our eyes are incredible at adjusting to different light levels and at resolving detail in a small area, phone cameras not so much. The moon at night is vastly, hugely, brighter than the black scene around it, meaning that focussing on and adjusting exposure for it is tricky indeed. Go on, try it for yourself with your phone's camera. However, armed with a phone camera with a decent telephoto and some top tips, there's no reason why you can't get close to what I shot here, yesterday on an iPhone 17 Pro Max: Whereas your first attempts to snap the moon will no doubt have been a small white blob on a vast black background. That's OK, you just need some top tips. Shoot in the daytime!  Yes, un...

It's new phone time! Typically a couple (or three) years after you bought the last one. And, happily, the transfer of your data to your new iPhone or Android device went well, using the manufacturer's suggested method (e.g. wirelessly, using a cable, or via the Internet). Most things came across, your homescreen is back to your preferred normal, and all that's left to do is sign into the likes of WhatsApp and any banking apps again. Phew! All done, so you put your old phone on eBay or sell it in some other way. Wrong!  Or at least that's my contention.  Because however well the transfer process (iPhone to iPhone Samsung to Samsung, with Smart Switch, or just things restored from the cloud via your Google account) went, it will only have transferred 99% of your data at best. There are ALWAYS things that get missed. Trust me. In my case, this very year, I was two weeks into my new phone (iPhone 17 Pro Max) ownership when I realised that over 100 photos hadn't come acr...

NB: With my web site being deprecated - or at least moved - at the end of 2026, I wanted to get this information up on my blog too, for easy linking, and passing on to others. I have no plans to stop offering the service below! Now that COVID-19 lockdown is lifted, have you had your eyes opened to a whole new world where your computers and other technology will play a larger part in your working and home life going forwards? The Internet means that all of us have a chance to at least step back partly from the rat race and work from home. Or perhaps it's your life-line to distant family and it needs to be smoother and more reliable?   Which is where I offer my computer help services in the  Reading ,  Woodley ,  Earley ,  Twyford, Caversham , and  Wokingham  areas.  If you've ever thought: 'that's not right, surely?' or  'I wish someone could sit beside me and show me how to do this properly!' or  'do I need a faster laptop or phone ...

This might just be me. Or it might be something you've been wondering about as well. Over the last 25 years or so, I've amassed a number of folders of audio book MP3s. Some bought by me, some grabbed during special offers, some acquired by - well, I'll don't always know(!) But I do know that they're on my laptop's (in this case a MacBook) internal disk and what I really want is them on my phone, to listen to on long journeys over Bluetooth headphones or car speakers. The quick and dirty solution here does work - but it's not elegant or intuitive. What I'd done in the past was drag and drop all the MP3s into Music (née iTunes) and hey, presto, they're listed under the author's name in amongst all my music artists. Messy, but at least they get synced over to my iPhone and I'm done.  Or am I? It's a real pain, not just to find these audio books (having to remember the author's name, for a start), but also because Music on the phone or la...

NB. This post is pre-dated as its content is (ahem) somewhat niche! NB2. I've since become aware of more source material. Watch this space in the next few weeks for a few additions! I'll amend the article as things evolve. Hawkwind's 1970s back catalogue has been extensively remastered and reworked, mainly by Cherry Red , with such classics as Space Ritual (1973)  and Quark, Strangeness & Charm (1977)  receiving the full treatment. But the cracks are starting to show - Hall of the Mountain Grill (1974)  had only a remaster of the original stereo mix because the multi-track original tapes had been lost.  An album which I'd been hoping could be expanded and improved was Live Seventy Nine , actually released in 1980. This was a single disk live album, with only six tracks (plus a stub of 'Silver Machine' blown apart by an explosion). But as a tour it was a big success, and very popular, not least because the core of Dave Brock, Harvey Bainbridge (on bass), and ...

Well, almost free. You will need a piece of paper (e.g. printed, as here, from your printer) and some blu-tac (or similar - other brands are available).  What started as a 'what if' idea ended up on my wall only a minute or so later. Having found an inspirational bible verse that I wanted on my wall, I racked my brains to see if I could remember where there was a spare picture frame. And then I wondered... Here's the final result: It seems to float off the wall, is held securely, and is - literally - just a piece of paper. And, yes, takes 60 seconds to make: Print off the artwork or photo you want onto A4 paper, ideally sizing it to be about 60-70% the width of the paper. The exact size and aspect ratio isn't critical. Turn the paper over and fold in the two shorter ends, as shown, so that the fold is roughly a centimetre from the top and bottom of your artwork, which you can hopefully roughly see through the paper. Similarly, and again as shown, fold in the left and ri...

From 2013 until, arguably, today (2025), Google had a solution for every home without a fancy Internet-connected TV. So that's most people.  The idea was that you could 'cast' a video streaming app from your smartphone - Netflix, YouTube, BBC iPlayer, Prime Video, and so on, and Google's Chromecast gadget, plugged into an HDMI port on your otherwise 'dumb' TV, would handle the content and let you watch things on your much larger screen. On the face of it, users would think that it was their phone's app directly streaming the video content to the TV, and it's here that the misunderstanding occurred. You see, Chromecast was in fact a tiny Internet-connected and media-savvy computer in its own right and all the user phone/app was doing was passing a specific playback/streaming URL to the Chromecast, for it to handle playback from then on. So the user could then do other things on the phone, or even wander off for a walk and leave someone else watching, eve...

It occurs to me, browsing through my own extensive library of Shorts on YouTube (most now, since YouTube's expansion of the format, up to 3 minutes long), it's not trivial to find videos on a particular topic or of a particular type. Hence, I thought I'd try an index of sorts here. That I could point people towards and also refer back to myself when needed. [Updated September 2025] NB. The video lists are sorted in approximate chronological order in each section. NB2. I've gone back a year, so as not to burden you with too much out of date or more primitive content. For the full set of videos, see my YouTube channel generally ! NB3. The lists below show just how much video content I've created in this format. If you'd like to show your appreciation via PayPal ? iPhone-related reviews and comment AirPods Pro 2nd gen: the best of three worlds? Clicks Keyboard review: part 1: Multi-tool, Multi-accessories Clicks Keyboard review: part 2: Why Clicks? Clicks Keyboard ...

Just to announce that, after 17 years and 864 shows(!), I’m stepping down from the Phones Show Chat podcast and retiring. This very week has seen my wife retire and it seems right that I spend time with her, my daughter, my home (and dog!), rather than scrabbling around week after week to gather guests, gadgets, and stories. I'd planned to stop at show 1000, but I don't feel it's right to carry on for almost another three years. So, the obvious questions. Will PSC continue as an audio podcast? Quite possibly, but under Ted’s capable management, either under the current or a new name/form. I’ll put out a short audio form of this on the feed next weekend, for podcatcher subscribers who might not catch the ‘news’. Will I continue in the tech space? I’ll carry on with Phones Show Shorts on YouTube as and when I have something to say. Will the PSC MeWe forums continue? Absolutely. Ted is their creator and they are in his hands. Again, with possible name tweaks if needed. The ...

Following my longer-than-expected ' how I came to iPhone in the 2020s story ' last week, I wanted to list the reasons why its human interface, iOS software and applications also play a part in keeping me from looking too hard at the Android competition... I should preface this list by saying that both iOS and Android operating systems have copied the best features from each other - and from other previous OS, including Windows Phone, Meego, Blackberry OS 10, and Web OS. For 90% of practical use, iOS and Android are now interchangeable and you can certainly set up your home screens and applications to mirror a setup that you might have had on the competing OS.  However that does leave the interesting 10%. So, away from mundanities like launching a web browser, running PIM and social media apps, watching YouTube and Netflix (etc), all of which are nigh identical on each OS, here are some of the reasons why, in 2025, I stay on the iPhone and iOS: 1. Face ID It's easy to say t...