Steve Litchfield

There are some questions I get a lot. One in recent days is "Why are you using iPhone?" A decade before that it was "Why are you using Windows Phone?". And around these there was Symbian, Palm OS, and Android, ALL of which have kept me in their clutch for multiple years between 1996 and 2026. So three decades! But what did I use when? And, perhaps more importantly, why?  (not my actual office!) 1996-2001 (EPOC and infrared) While not a smartphone per se, these four years introduced me to wireless comms, thanks to a smart OS, SIBO/EPOC on the Psion palmtops, and using their IrDA (infrared) capabilities to hook up to various 'dumb' phones which had infrared capabilities or dongles. My favourite was the Ericsson SH888, which was made of titanium and which had IrDA built-in, so I'd position it next to my Psion Series 5 (for example) and then be checking email. (You have to remember that in this time period, email was about all you could do online. There wer...

I 've discovered something wonderful about Bluetooth speakers and desktops... Listening to music while working on my laptop at my desk usually involves my Creative Pebble Pro v2 speakers - they connect to my MacBook via Bluetooth and generally work very well for glorious stereo either side of the screen. However, I recently picked up a Marshall Emberton II on PSC Classifieds and I love the meaty bass and rocky feel from this. Yet the stereo effect is minimal. Can I have both at once? The wide stereo from the Pebble Pros and the bass and oomph from the Marshall? Yes, as it turns out! I know this sounds geeky, awkward and clunky, but two sets of Bluetooth speakers can be hooked up at the same time ! On both Mac (the built-in Audio MIDI utility) and on Windows (with the third party VolumeMeeter freeware)! The latter can be studied by any Windows users, but for me on the Mac it involved: finding and starting the Audio MIDI app in the Utilities folder creating a new Multi-Output Devi...