Hi folks! My name is Jeff, and I live with my wife in a small community near Windsor (UK). We have two sons, and two wonderful granddaughters.

I qualified as an Electronics Design Engineer in the early 60’s and started out my career designing life-testing equipment for reed-relays, followed by a few years developing the instrumentation for scientific (chemical) analysis equipment. By the end of the 70’s, analogue engineering was in the decline, and I became increasingly involved with the application of the Microprocessor as a means of solving intricate instrumentation requirements. This led me into the fascinating world of software development, something that has stayed with me throughout the remainder of my career.

By the early 80’s I had moved on to designing equipment for the study of underwater-sound, it’s detection, localisation, analysis, and display. This was a huge field, requiring both analogue and software design backgrounds, and which suited me admirably. I remained gainfully employed in this area for more than the past 30 years, occasionally spending time at sea in submarines. I retired from full-time employment in 2014, and now work freelance as a consultant and designer, in similar fields.  

I have various interests and hobbies including photography, movie-making, DIY, music (Classical, Rock, Blues), and writing freeware and shareware. I also now have time to tinker with various inventions and gadgets that I’ve had in mind over the years but not had the time to develop. This has been helped enormously by the recent explosion in new affordable technology ranging from microcontrollers to 3D printers.

My technical background leads me to be inquisitive about how things work, and I find the Internet a great source of inspiration. I also have a creative side, not to be confused with ‘artistic’. In 1997 I built my first website which centred on the subject of Linear Video Editing, an intricate and hardware-intensive form of video editing, and one which a lot of people had trouble with - especially considering the PC hardware of the day. This website is largely obsolete today as technology has moved on, but I have transferred some aspects of it, suitably updated, to this present site.

I started this new website in 2005, and tried to cover a broader range of subjects. I suppose, rather than being a website, this is more like a giant blog, but I do not hide the fact that I am also using it as a vehicle to expose my shareware which I am hoping will create a trickle of income in my retirement, and help with the cost of buying and maintaining the software development tools I need, and contribute to the running costs of this site (hosting fees alone are quite substantial). I also have freeware available, which shows that my intentions are not wholly profit related.

Any comments that you have relating to this website -  problems or suggestions for improvement, will be gratefully received. For brief comments, use the Feedback button on the left of every page. Alternatively, send an email to the address below.

Email - support(at)vitalsparks.com (replace (at) with @ - removed to prevent spamming)