Daniel Maclean

Scottish High School League Table 2021 Mapped

2021-05-13T23:09:00.005+01:00

It's that time of year again when The Times, a news organisation, ranks all the high schools in Scotland. It has done this for a few years now, and it would seem that this years results could be quite controversial. On account of the exams not being sat in the same manner as previous years. Instead, exams were replaced with teacher estimates. Whether you agree with that or not, this is where we are.

That aside, how does this work? Schools are ranked by calculating the percentage of pupils (students) who attain 5 or more Highers for that year for that school. It's not clear to me if you need to have received specific grades for those Highers, but on the surface, it would seem it doesn't matter. Simply the number of Highers rather than at which grade.

Apparently this is Nicola Sturgeon's "Gold Standard" but my quick look around Google couldn't find a quote on this. Have a source to share? Drop it into the comments.

This "Gold Standard" however has the effect of being a little deceptive i.e. if you get 3 Highers all with A's vs someone with 5 Highers all at C's, you'd naturally assume quality is better than quantity, but not by this metric.

It's for this reason and many others that before you start pouring over this map and it's associated data that you understand that this is just one metric and with the data shaped a different way, could result in a very different results.

If you are not from Scotland, you'd be forgiven for not knowing what "Highers" are. They are appox. the exams and subsequent results which teenagers will typically set at around the age of 17, some older, sometimes younger. You can read more about them here.

If the map above isn't working, you can find it here as well.

I've also included the geocoded data behind this map below. If you find any issues with the data, please let me know, happy to correct it.

Position	Name	Council	Percentage	Latitude	Longitude
1	Jordanhill School Glasgow	Glasgow	86%	55.88466	-4.33414
2	St Ninian's High School East Renfrewshire	East Renfrewshire	80%	55.935758	-4.162835
3	Gryffe High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	80%	55.864876	-4.553822
4	Dunblane High School Stirling	Stirling	79%	56.183373	-3.980038
5	Mearns Castle High School East Renfrewshire	East Renfrewshire	77%	55.769513	-4.307125
6	Bearsden Academy East Dunbartonshire	East Dunbartonshire	76%	55.92816309	-4.346858551
7	Boroughmuir High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	76%	55.941059	-3.214646
8	Williamwood High School East Renfrewshire	East Renfrewshire	76%	55.776998	-4.278632
9	Cults Academy Aberdeen	Aberdeen	76%	57.118537	-2.190069
10	Bishopbriggs Academy East Dunbartonshire	East Dunbartonshire	74%	55.908285	-4.200632
11	Linlithgow Academy West Lothian	West Lothian	70%	55.971594	-3.613579
12	West Calder High School West Lothian	West Lothian	70%	55.86188	-3.541033
13	Lenzie Academy East Dunbartonshire	East Dunbartonshire	69%	55.92708106084337	-4.159345511464501
14	Douglas Academy East Dunbartonshire	East Dunbartonshire	68%	55.94728860971817	-4.345365536024512
15	James Gillespie's High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	68%	55.936192	-3.200634
16	Earlston High School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	67%	55.64057687088375	-2.661941184400254
17	Eastwood High School East Renfrewshire	East Renfrewshire	66%	55.747131	-4.343014
18	Glasgow Gaelic School Glasgow	Glasgow	65%	55.86457	-4.279467
19	Balfron High School Stirling	Stirling	65%	56.073043	-4.329355
20	The James Young High School West Lothian	West Lothian	55%	55.879529	-3.516817
21	Turnbull High School East Dunbartonshire	East Dunbartonshire	64%	55.90871293364489	-4.238383726587288
22	Aberdeen Grammar School Aberdeen	Aberdeen	64%	57.146917	-2.114769
23	Largs Academy North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	63%	55.795605	-4.858397
24	Moffat Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	62%	55.329077785593164	-3.436103900438876
25	Notre Dame High School Glasgow City Council	Glasgow City Council	62%	55.87827443057079	-4.298057655401401
26	St Margaret's Academy West Lothian	West Lothian	62%	55.88864103078981	-3.522396320930684
27	Glen Urquhart High School Highland	Highland	62%	57.328304	-4.484904
28	Woodfarm High School East Renfrewshire	East Renfrewshire	61%	55.803597	-4.311271
29	Strathaven Academy South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	61%	55.67597949656899	-4.070429838212172
30	Boclair Academy East Dunbartonshire	East Dunbartonshire	61%	55.916232	-4.304837
31	Westhill Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	61%	57.156078	-2.281932
32	Firrhill High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	60%	55.915201	-3.236832
33	The Royal High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	59%	55.96451504280688	-3.2839548022314404
34	St Joseph's College Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	59%	55.047022	-3.584947
35	Marr College South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	59%	55.54870053964632	-4.645663779796399
36	Sir E Scott School Western Isles	Western Isles	58%	57.90007977120536	-6.811446295709156
37	Aboyne Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	57%	57.07496556576069	-2.7936636717544467
38	North Berwick High School East Lothian	East Lothian	56%	56.052446	-2.72234
39	Banchory Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	56%	57.053436	-2.491111
40	Peebles High School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	56%	55.64534618802768	-3.1904414750178494
41	Tarbert Academy Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	56%	55.862074378637715	-5.413412601598464
42	St Thomas Of Aquin's High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	55%	55.943611	-3.198187
43	Hyndland Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	55%	55.876966	-4.310243
44	St Maurice's High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	55%	55.941888	-4.031216
45	St Ninian's High School East Dunbartonshire	East Dunbartonshire	54%	55.935758	-4.162835
46	Dalziel High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	54%	55.786929	-3.999815
47	Wallace Hall Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	54%	55.242674390149936	-3.757130813326631
48	Monifieth High School Angus	Angus	54%	56.479726	-2.841392
49	Our Lady's High School Cumbernauld North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	54%	55.777071	-3.976234
50	Currie Community High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	54%	55.896158	-3.320628
51	The Community School of Auchterarder Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	54%	56.298632	-3.707528
52	Barrhead High School East Renfrewshire	East Renfrewshire	54%	55.800196	-4.376802
53	St Andrew's and St Bride's High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	54%	55.762061	-4.167405
54	Mallaig High School Highland	Highland	53%	57.001025	-5.831478
55	Ardnamurchan High School Highland	Highland	53%	56.700201	-5.568534
56	Balerno Community High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	52%	55.887055	-3.338127
57	Kyle Academy South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	52%	55.457437	-4.599585
58	Tobermory High School Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	52%	56.62422288593926	-6.068241211292271
59	Crieff High School Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	52%	56.571976	-3.763641
60	Portree High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	52%	57.412785	-6.202362
61	Clydeview Academy Inverclyde	Inverclyde	51%	55.952335	-4.801127
62	Inveralmond Community High School West Lothian	West Lothian	51%	55.900755	-3.521431
63	Trinity Academy Edinburgh	Edinburgh	51%	55.976578	-3.19503
64	Craigmount High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	51%	55.945077	-3.307073
65	Grove Academy Dundee	Dundee	51%	56.471401396634164	-2.8795744757169905
66	Braes High School Falkirk	Falkirk	51%	55.980133	-3.734939
67	Fortrose Academy Highland	Highland	50%	57.579739	-4.126454
68	McLaren High School Stirling	Stirling	50%	56.105157	-3.945692
69	St Luke's High School East Renfrewshire	East Renfrewshire	50%	55.790082	-4.386012
70	St Kentigern's Academy West Lothian	West Lothian	50%	55.872166	-3.634829
71	Mackie Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	50%	56.97323	-2.223322
72	Perth High School Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	50%	56.571976	-3.763641
73	Paisley Grammar School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	50%	55.846384	-4.411348
74	Bathgate Academy West Lothian	West Lothian	50%	55.897886	-3.612943
75	Oldmachar Academy Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	50%	57.193807	-2.123769
76	Holy Cross High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	49%	55.78557483599192	-4.054864388064768
77	St Ambrose High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	49%	55.868659216894116	-4.052285432660934
78	Kinross High School Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	48%	56.571976	-3.763641
79	Anderson High School Shetland	Shetland	48%	60.149588	-1.13711
80	Dunbar Grammar School East Lothian	East Lothian	48%	55.99977	-2.529847
81	Milne's High School Moray	Moray	48%	57.610155	-3.099696
82	Madras College Fife	Fife	47%	56.338882	-2.798113
83	Whitburn Academy West Lothian	West Lothian	47%	55.869192	-3.677541
84	Hermitage Academy Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	47%	55.993529473485744	-4.701680848250598
85	Lasswade High School Centre Midlothian	Midlothian	47%	55.871839	-3.114559
86	Cardinal Newman High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	47%	55.816037	-4.035443
87	Sgoil Lionacleit School Western Isles	Western Isles	47%	57.425023	-7.365148
88	Wallace High School Stirling	Stirling	46%	56.140310546074545	-3.9266694041534507
89	Taylor High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	46%	55.874568	-3.972237
90	Dalbeattie High School Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	46%	54.93057616518131	-3.830236441734918
91	Stirling High School Stirling	Stirling	46%	56.105157	-3.945692
92	Calderglen High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	46%	55.920311	-3.289104
93	Armadale Academy West Lothian	West Lothian	46%	55.895091	-3.715276
94	Duncanrig Secondary School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	45%	55.759619	-4.204616
95	Prestwick Academy South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	45%	55.501955	-4.610634
96	Breadalbane Academy Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	45%	56.571976	-3.763641
97	Alford Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	45%	57.231256	-2.707231
98	Greenfaulds High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	45%	55.93637	-4.007924
99	Trinity High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	45%	55.823291107677065	-4.187085004329727
100	Belmont Academy South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	45%	55.4453	-4.618285
101	Charleston Academy Highland	Highland	45%	57.470645	-4.255957
102	Our Lady's High School Motherwell North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	45%	55.777071	-3.976234
103	Bannerman High School Glasgow	Glasgow	45%	55.848329	-4.122547
104	Ellon Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	45%	57.358953	-2.053583
105	Langholm Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	45%	55.15395362270768	-3.004579081494289
106	Larbert High School Falkirk	Falkirk	44%	56.02297788983311	-3.8080598596098496
107	Queen Margaret Academy South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	44%	55.442088	-4.60257
108	St Mungo's RC High School Falkirk	Falkirk	44%	56.115433	-3.793493
109	Hillhead High School Glasgow	Glasgow	44%	55.874212	-4.285214
110	St Aidan's High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	44%	55.78050244644473	-3.9155929824840916
111	Webster's High School Angus	Angus	44%	56.670482	-3.006352
112	Portlethen Academy Inverclyde	Inverclyde	44%	57.057659	-2.134775
113	St Benedict's High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	44%	55.84518	-4.512618
114	Queensferry Community High School South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	43%	55.985714	-3.385618
115	St John's RC Academy Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	43%	56.410316	-3.438701
116	Chryston High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	43%	55.904227	-4.104241
117	Uddingston Grammar School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	43%	55.822711	-4.092234
118	Dunoon Grammar School Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	43%	55.962647	-4.925094
119	Larkhall Academy South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	43%	55.733695	-3.975575
120	Deans Community High School West Lothian	West Lothian	42%	55.907056	-3.549452
121	Kemnay Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	42%	57.241495	-2.447374
122	Knox Academy East Lothian	East Lothian	42%	55.95343062618178	-2.787040214030581
123	Plockton High School Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	42%	57.334366	-5.666253
124	Waid Academy Fife	Fife	42%	56.22537	-2.703415
125	Grantown Grammar School Highland	Highland	42%	57.334293	-3.598733
126	Meldrum Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	42%	57.33677	-2.330464
127	Park Mains High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	42%	55.902784	-4.458714
128	Oban High School Inverclyde	Inverclyde	42%	56.406388	-5.467884
129	Bucksburn Academy Moray	Moray	42%	57.177258	-2.182622
130	Gleniffer High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	41%	55.825668	-4.457529
131	Castle Douglas High School Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	41%	54.94879528529942	-3.928638935869295
132	Harris Academy Dundee	Dundee	41%	56.456218300833065	-3.009213546225572
133	Mearns Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	41%	56.836259	-2.459734
134	Inverness Royal Academy Highland	Highland	41%	57.448892	-4.224756
135	Broughton High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	41%	55.960704	-3.221726
136	Inverurie Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	41%	57.282731	-2.377175
137	Kilsyth Academy North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	41%	55.979075	-4.05807
138	St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	40%	55.880933	-4.334697
139	Inverkeithing High School Fife	Fife	40%	56.035561275400916	-3.3867037909140865
140	Millburn Academy Highland	Highland	40%	57.479872	-4.209226
141	Portobello High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	40%	55.944572	-3.110866
142	St Columba's High School Inverclyde	Inverclyde	40%	56.07141	-3.419502
143	St Modan's High School Stirling	Stirling	40%	56.120113	-3.907091
144	Islay High School Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	40%	55.755570536845596	-6.290406580528819
145	Holyrood Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	40%	55.832335	-4.251781
146	Bridge Of Don Academy Aberdeen	Aberdeen	40%	57.184966	-2.111615
147	Golspie High School Highland	Highland	40%	57.975798	-3.973566
148	St John Ogilvie High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	39%	55.779154	-4.078434
149	Balwearie High School Fife	Fife	39%	56.101185	-3.171487
150	Ullapool High School Highland	Highland	39%	57.898719	-5.154242
151	Cumbernauld Academy North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	39%	55.95129	-3.998891
152	St Andrew's Academy Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	39%	55.830805	-4.391996
153	Bell Baxter High School Fife	Fife	39%	56.317179	-3.029124
154	Hazlehead Academy Aberdeen	Aberdeen	39%	57.143234	-2.179694
155	Dumfries High School Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	39%	55.07491351741259	-3.5946054981354347
156	Dalkeith High School Midlothian	Midlothian	39%	55.901616	-3.045316
157	Galashiels Academy Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	39%	55.61683	-2.801798
158	Carrick Academy South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	39%	55.351357	-4.695966
159	Harlaw Academy Aberdeen	Aberdeen	39%	57.14201	-2.117217
160	Dornoch Academy Highland	Highland	39%	57.882833	-4.045574
161	Graeme High School Falkirk	Falkirk	38%	55.997264	-3.763389
162	Holy Rood RC High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	38%	55.941065	-3.143828
163	Cathkin High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	38%	55.812897	-4.181071
164	Beeslack Community High School Midlothian	Midlothian	38%	55.839827	-3.211999
165	Forres Academy Moray	Moray	38%	57.603109	-3.611323
166	Speyside High School Moray	Moray	38%	57.470807	-3.219712
167	St Matthew's Academy North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	38%	55.642712	-4.789356
168	Blairgowrie High School Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	38%	56.571976	-3.763641
169	Kingussie High School Highland	Highland	38%	57.0778	-4.050271
170	Kirkintilloch High School East Dunbartonshire	East Dunbartonshire	38%	55.935917	-4.131535
171	Port Glasgow High School Inverclyde	Inverclyde	38%	55.919653	-4.65342
172	St Joseph's Academy East Ayrshire	East Ayrshire	38%	55.61591233527419	-4.481964825148641
173	Jedburgh Grammar School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	38%	55.480505	-2.553575
174	Thurso High School Highland	Highland	38%	58.586998	-3.531687
175	Glenwood High School Fife	Fife	38%	56.197222	-3.206748
176	Biggar High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	37%	55.621545	-3.52258
177	Our Lady & St Patrick's High School West Dunbartonshire	West Dunbartonshire	37%	55.960317119817205	-4.552051284258755
178	Alva Academy Clackmannanshire	Clackmannanshire	37%	56.15035879763602	-3.791461931784385
179	The Nicolson Institute Western Isles	Western Isles	37%	58.209733	-6.380448
180	Dyce Academy Aberdeen	Aberdeen	37%	57.205845	-2.175089
181	Elgin Academy Moray	Moray	37%	57.650634	-3.328625
182	St Augustine's High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	37%	55.932403	-3.292042
183	Lourdes Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	37%	55.871877	-4.184395
184	Dingwall Academy Highland	Highland	37%	57.601262	-4.432623
185	Elgin High School Moray	Moray	37%	57.635237	-3.322547
186	Stonelaw High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	37%	55.821432	-4.19651
187	Woodmill High School Fife	Fife	36%	56.070094	-3.424149
188	Arran High School North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	36%	55.530249	-5.134308
189	Culloden Academy Highland	Highland	36%	57.492574	-4.131611
190	Dunfermline High School Fife	Fife	36%	56.062389	-3.453279
191	Notre Dame High School Glasgow	Glasgow	36%	55.87828009734482	-4.298333869658786
192	Lanark Grammar School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	36%	55.66910814836608	-3.7709603180731106
193	Selkirk High School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	36%	55.549527517461144	-2.8337978962811987
194	Berwickshire High School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	36%	55.775066	-2.3576
195	Stromness Academy Orkney	Orkney	36%	58.969387	-3.285181
196	Auchenharvie Academy North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	36%	55.638072	-4.767658
197	Hamilton Grammar School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	35%	55.774431	-4.047194
198	Stewarton Academy East Ayrshire	East Ayrshire	35%	55.680497	-4.512899
199	Renfrew High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	35%	55.862356	-4.527974
200	Shawlands Academy Glasgow	Glasgow	35%	55.830691	-4.284659
201	Lockerbie Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	35%	55.12908315693504	-3.3580002831202034
202	Queen Anne High School Fife	Fife	35%	56.082735	-3.466423
203	Bo'ness Academy Falkirk	Falkirk	35%	56.009614	-3.595121
204	Nairn Academy Highland	Highland	35%	57.57655	-3.885331
205	Arbroath High School Angus	Angus	35%	56.562644	-2.600532
206	St Andrew's High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	35%	55.84766210971846	-4.031321042601296
207	Castlemilk High School Glasgow	Glasgow	35%	55.800429	-4.229625
208	Greenwood Academy North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	35%	55.60795873547031	-4.632313765360746
209	Lochgilphead High School Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	35%	56.286837	-5.306891
210	Broxburn Academy West Lothian	West Lothian	34%	55.93648	-3.48779
211	Perth Academy Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	34%	56.395704	-3.435877
212	Falkirk High School Falkirk	Falkirk	34%	55.991475	-3.791676
213	Loudoun Academy East Ayrshire	East Ayrshire	34%	55.434174	-4.291372
214	Kirkwall Grammar School Orkney	Orkney	34%	58.978565	-2.947035
215	Trinity High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	34%	55.877078666721296	-4.386014943534983
216	St John's RC High School Dundee	Dundee	34%	56.47529617981578	-2.9956559457641183
217	St Margaret's High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	34%	55.87053	-3.968877
218	Bellahouston Academy Glasgow	Glasgow	34%	55.847468	-4.301021
219	St Mungo's Academy Glasgow	Glasgow	34%	55.85357	-4.22039
220	St Peter the Apostle High School West Dunbartonshire	West Dunbartonshire	34%	55.914059	-4.398783
221	Garnock Community Campus North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	34%	55.73940676607169	-4.669951397805394
222	Johnstone High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	34%	55.823311	-4.526299
223	Dumfries Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	33%	55.07220570490328	-3.6100240580643095
224	Penicuik High School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	33%	55.830969	-3.229231
225	Inverclyde Academy Inverclyde	Inverclyde	33%	55.938929	-4.81112
226	Gairloch High School Highland	Highland	33%	57.744095	-5.764887
227	Coltness High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	33%	55.781542	-3.906915
228	Leith Academy Edinburgh	Edinburgh	33%	55.96595	-3.1654
229	Mintlaw Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	33%	57.52495731701879	-2.012642483981052
230	Clydebank High School West Dunbartonshire	West Dunbartonshire	33%	55.99532	-4.543495
231	John Paul Academy Glasgow	Glasgow	33%	55.904257	-4.296502
232	Airdrie Academy North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	32%	55.864026	-4.011948
233	Dumbarton Academy West Dunbartonshire	West Dunbartonshire	32%	55.99532	-4.543495
234	Carnoustie High School Angus	Angus	32%	56.505813	-2.726298
235	Brannock High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	32%	55.810294	-3.958101
236	Fraserburgh Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	32%	57.688143	-2.01457
237	Invergordon Academy Highland	Highland	32%	57.692386	-4.166002
238	St David's RC High School Midlothian	Midlothian	32%	55.900684	-3.044876
239	Bannockburn High School Stirling	Stirling	32%	56.096247095551846	-3.920752420933577
240	Musselburgh Grammar School East Lothian	East Lothian	31%	55.938545	-3.049584
241	King's Park Secondary School Highland	Highland	31%	55.813685	-4.248491
242	Cleveden Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	31%	55.886862	-4.303628
243	Kilwinning Academy North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	31%	55.655777	-4.70237
244	All Saints Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	31%	55.886173	-4.204016
245	Tain Royal Academy Highland	Highland	31%	57.807968	-4.057566
246	Kilmarnock Academy East Ayrshire	East Ayrshire	30%	55.608569	-4.49325
247	Lesmahagow High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	30%	55.642793	-3.886982
248	Whitehill Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	30%	55.860727	-4.213079
249	Douglas Ewart High School Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	30%	54.960341	-4.490076
250	Carluke High School South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	30%	55.735564	-3.824788
251	Lossiemouth High School Moray	Moray	30%	57.713823	-3.297303
252	Vale Of Leven Academy West Dunbartonshire	West Dunbartonshire	30%	55.98044	-4.580982
253	Farr High School Highland	Highland	30%	58.52616357061574	-4.224401875945485
254	Auchinleck Academy East Ayrshire	East Ayrshire	29%	55.476186	-4.294555
255	St Andrew's Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	29%	55.860771	-4.168731
256	Grange Academy East Ayrshire	East Ayrshire	29%	55.607225	-4.512566
257	Kinlochleven High School Highland	Highland	29%	56.714754	-4.967379
258	Drummond Community High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	29%	55.960443	-3.190335
259	Perth Grammar School Perth & Kinross	Perth & Kinross	29%	56.410771	-3.444009
260	Forfar Academy Angus	Angus	29%	56.651442	-2.898046
261	St Machar Academy Aberdeen	Aberdeen	29%	57.165295	-2.110772
262	Alness Academy Highland	Highland	29%	57.693564	-4.25066
263	Doon Academy East Ayrshire	East Ayrshire	29%	55.434174	-4.291372
264	Kirkcaldy High School Fife	Fife	28%	56.132184	-3.166561
265	The Gordon Schools Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	28%	57.450565	-2.785148
266	Coatbridge High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	28%	55.863643	-4.018156
267	Denny High School Falkirk	Falkirk	28%	56.020572	-3.897398
268	St Andrew's R C High School Fife	Fife	28%	56.132047	-3.150028
269	St Columba's R C High School Fife	Fife	28%	56.07141	-3.419502
270	Stranraer Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	28%	54.90426677959236	-5.016382746585964
271	Grangemouth High School Falkirk	Falkirk	27%	56.003758	-3.713695
272	Banff Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	27%	57.660695	-2.534831
273	Kelso High School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	27%	55.60984690937078	-2.4370488297460917
274	Caldervale High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	27%	55.866131	-3.93858
275	Clyde Valley High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	27%	55.758058	-3.918636
276	St Stephen's High School Inverclyde	Inverclyde	27%	55.918756	-4.654239
277	Wick High School Highland	Highland	27%	58.43621709269163	-3.1000881083809824
278	Hillpark Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	27%	55.81556	-4.299338
279	St Margaret Mary's Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	27%	55.80281746158974	-4.237605001069262
280	Baldragon Academy Dundee	Dundee	27%	56.494158	-2.99174
281	Annan Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	26%	54.98492148879875	-3.2605191646773988
282	Eyemouth High School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	26%	55.862326	-2.086958
283	Glenrothes High School Fife	Fife	26%	56.198277	-3.191143
284	Ross High School East Lothian	East Lothian	26%	55.943183	-2.954606
285	Rosshall Academy East Lothian	East Lothian	26%	55.842045	-4.362761
286	Knightswood Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	26%	55.890912	-4.337077
287	St Paul's RC Academy Dundee	Dundee	26%	56.485598	-2.979375
288	Drumchapel High School Glasgow	Glasgow	26%	55.914203	-4.366299
289	Cumnock Academy East Ayrshire	East Ayrshire	25%	55.452859	-4.274104
290	Beath High School Fife	Fife	25%	56.113275	-3.358027
291	Morgan Academy Dundee	Dundee	25%	56.47474	-2.954065
292	Lochgelly High School Fife	Fife	25%	56.13785	-3.31622
293	Kirkcudbright Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	24%	54.83521007422528	-4.055947988070188
294	Girvan Academy South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	24%	55.239325	-4.844999
295	Keith Grammar School Moray	Moray	24%	57.545178	-2.945152
296	Auchmuty High School Fife	Fife	24%	56.195135	-3.159166
297	Montrose Academy Angus	Angus	24%	56.709499	-2.462473
298	Calderside Academy South Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire	24%	55.791671	-4.094195
299	Hawick High School Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	24%	55.421846	-2.79437
300	Preston Lodge High School East Lothian	East Lothian	24%	55.958477	-2.969463
301	Bellshill Academy North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	23%	55.819049	-4.023432
302	Lornshill Academy Clackmannanshire	Clackmannanshire	23%	56.132134	-3.814353
303	Calderhead High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	23%	55.821081	-3.796949
304	Springburn Academy Glasgow	Glasgow	23%	55.885927	-4.228346
305	Lochaber High School Highland	Highland	22%	56.837407	-5.07636
306	Arbroath Academy Angus	Angus	22%	56.569146	-2.57217
307	Tynecastle High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	22%	55.939881	-3.229517
308	Buckie High School Midlothian	Midlothian	22%	57.671752	-2.969937
309	Turriff Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	22%	57.536468	-2.461078
310	Castlehead High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	21%	55.839728	-4.433478
311	Liberton High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	21%	55.914614	-3.152881
312	Alloa Academy Clackmannanshire	Clackmannanshire	21%	56.109531	-3.793874
313	Lochside Academy Aberdeen	Aberdeen	21%	57.11137167821689	-2.099485685171436
314	Newbattle High School Midlothian	Midlothian	21%	55.875362	-3.054782
315	St Roch's Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	20%	55.86847	-4.232662
316	Smithycroft Secondary School Glasgow	Glasgow	19%	55.871877	-4.184395
317	Sanquhar Academy Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries & Galloway	18%	55.367895	-3.921964
318	Brechin High School Angus	Angus	18%	56.736702	-2.670775
319	Ardrossan Academy North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	18%	55.644957	-4.799082
320	Peterhead Academy Aberdeenshire	Aberdeenshire	18%	57.509373	-1.787967
321	Ayr Academy South Ayrshire	South Ayrshire	18%	55.46461351596913	-4.633808432731973
322	Rothesay Academy Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	17%	55.825426362128596	-5.057316280876615
323	Forrester High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	17%	55.931007	-3.289811
324	Braidhurst High School North Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire	17%	55.800309	-3.999273
325	St Paul's High School Glasgow	Glasgow	17%	55.82540937695508	-4.336875616198483
326	Irvine Royal Academy North Ayrshire	North Ayrshire	16%	55.626989	-4.676011
327	Viewforth High School Fife	Fife	14%	56.132818	-3.128786
328	Eastbank Academy Glasgow	Glasgow	14%	55.850448	-4.163461
329	Gracemount High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	14%	55.904407	-3.155463
330	Craigie High School Dundee	Dundee	13%	56.472824	-2.92039
331	Braeview Academy Dundee	Dundee	13%	56.494496	-2.915327
332	Levenmouth Academy Fife	Fife	13%	56.181352	-3.038793
333	Inverness High School Highland	Highland	13%	57.47585380743632	-4.236749581142905
334	Campbeltown Grammar School Argyll & Bute	Argyll & Bute	12%	55.418104	-5.60409
335	Linwood High School Renfrewshire	Renfrewshire	12%	55.849513047619915	-4.508801897144638
336	Lochend Community High School Glasgow	Glasgow	12%	55.868396	-4.10736
337	Govan High School Glasgow	Glasgow	11%	55.857675	-4.332824
338	Wester Hailes Education Centre Edinburgh	Edinburgh	11%	55.917425	-3.290526
339	Northfield Academy Aberdeen	Aberdeen	10%	57.162184	-2.147559
340	Craigroyston Community High School Edinburgh	Edinburgh	15%	55.973155	-3.255342

Your adsense account is no longer connected

2021-05-07T15:41:00.010+01:00

If you are here, then you are getting the message "your adsense account is no longer connected" message on the Earnings page on blogger.com. You are most likely here though, because you have clicked "Remove Adsense", tried to re-enable adsense but it still didn't work. There is no official support page for this issue, so i'm sharing how I fixed this problem.

1) Click "Remove Adsense" on the Earnings page on blogger.com

2) Visit Adsense here (https://www.google.com/adsense)

3) Login and click on "Sites" on the left side of the page

4) Now because you are logged into Blogger with your Google Account, Blogger can automatically check to see if a site is listed with Adsense and if so, then your site should be listed here already.

In my case I had an error against the site i.e. "Requires review". I followed the provided steps which for me was to add a small piece of Javascript into the HEAD tags in Blogger and then click a box to confirm it was done. Once I done that and requested a review Adsense seemed happier. I then went back to blogger.com and clicked "Enabled Adsense" on the Earnings page.

I then got the message "Getting your blog ready to show ads" i.e. once the review has been completed, then ads will start displaying.

Hope that helps. Keep in mind, there may be other reasons why it's failing for you, but in my case, the information to solve my problem was on Adsense itself https://www.google.com/adsense.

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

OS X Yosemite: Continuity Quick Photo Dial App

2014-10-22T00:34:00.004+01:00

With the release of OS X Yosemite from Apple last week it's been a few days of exploring all the different features that have been introduced into Apple's latest OS. I like the sleek new UI and Safari looks much better. Spotlight has had a facelift and seems to do so much more than it did before. But the feature that sticks out for me, is Continuity.

I really like the Continuity feature in OS X Yosemite with my iPhone 5. So I wanted to find a way of pulling together a way of quickly dialling numbers on my desktop without having to fire up FaceTime or use Spotlight.

One way of doing this is to create an Automator application which executes some very simple AppleScript so that when you double click the app on the desktop it dials the chosen number, here are some steps to re-create this:

Fire up Automator and Click "New Document"
Select "Application" and click "Choose"
In the search bar at the top left, type in "AppleScript", then double click "Run AppleScript"
This should add an entry into the right side, replace the pre-existing text with the following:

on run {input, parameters}

open location "tel://XXXXX XXX XXX"

return input

end run

Replace the "XXXXX XXX XXX" with an actual phone number
Then click 'File", give your dialler a name like "Call Steve" then click "Save"
I recommend that you save it to your desktop and then close Automator

When you go to your desktop you will notice an Automator icon, just double click it and this should fire up FaceTime in the background, connect to your phone and ask you to confirm if you want to call the number.

There you go. Another way of using OS X's Continuity feature without using FaceTime or Contacts directly. I have several of these on my own desktop so I can just double click them and call important contacts quickly.

You could also create a folder of these and drag the folder into the icon bar at the bottom and create yourself a photo quick dial list. Very handy if you have multiple and don't want them littered all over your desktop.

I also changed the icons to be the same images at the contacts inside of the Contacts app.

If you fire the Contacts app up and find the contact that has the image you want
Just click "Edit" on the contacts picture and press "Command C" or Edit-> Copy from the menu bar.
If you then click the dialler shortcut on the desktop you created and press "Command i" a window should popup on the left (this is the file properties dialog)
Click the automator icon and once it highlights in blue, press "Command V".
This should set the Apps icon to the contact image you copied from your contacts.

Hope you find this useful.

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

New Monitor - LG 29EA73 29 inch 21:9 UltraWide IPS Monitor

2014-07-19T16:54:00.002+01:00

I don't normally do reviews on just products themselves, but thought i'd make an exception.

I was in the market a few months ago for a new monitor and as the last time I bought one was over 5 years ago much had changed (both how I use a computer and what is available). I mostly multitask between coding, emulators, emails, web and chat which means I need a lot of screen real estate to avoid alt-tabbing every 2 seconds. The monitor I had at the time was a 24" Acer monitor which was fine, but was VGA driven and I have a Macbook Pro Retina which required converting from DisplayPort to VGA. For reference, I have two brands of this converter, the official Appleone and a 3rd Party. Both are terrible and are prone to flickering and general crappiness. This more than anything coupled with not enough screen pushed me to get something different.

So, after a few weeks of research I settled on the LG 29EA73

With it's super wide aspect ratio at 21:9 vs my old 16:9, I could have email, chat and a 3rd window all open at the same time. It had the added bonus of having the same aspect ratio as cinemascope films, which look great on screen. Games look equally great, some don't scale well (Dungeon Keeper), particularly the older ones, but the modern ones look great (Grid).

Inputs are equally great. I use DisplayPort as the primary input and is by far the best method to utilise the screen, why? Well HDMI again works great but isn't designed to utilise such a wide aspect ratio, meaning the screen has to be stretched. DVI equally cannot support the super wide resolution, but if you hook up a dual link DVI, then it works fine. I'm not a colour profiler or spend too much time tweaking the screens gamut, but I seem to get a better picture if I use DisplayPort. The screen also has USB ports, one for connecting the screen to the laptop and a few more to connect phones, hard drives, etc.

Overall a great monitor, quality is good and it does have built in speakers. I don't use them myself, but a bonus is that you cannot see them. The monitor is super thin and i've got my mounted on a desk arm, this one for reference.

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

Plex Essentials - Unofficial App Store

2014-05-22T00:35:00.003+01:00

One of the features I missed from XBMC after I done the transition to Plex was the ability to add apps/plugins and customisations. Now I get that Plex's goal is different to XBMC's ie. the later is to be the jack of all trades and the former is a more refined experience, but sometimes it's nice to be able to add a few more things and make it your own.

If you've used Plex you'll know that "Channels" (found on the main menu) is in fact a method in which to access features which can be added to Plex which are not part of the core app. I think out of the box you can add features like BBC iPlayer and Youtube, which are must have's for any serious media center.

If you need more than this, like say for instance a "Channel" which allows you to forcefully update your library remotely, then the Unofficial App Store is the way to go.

More instructions on how to enable this are at this forum post:

https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/25523-unsupported-as-in-totally-unofficial-appstore/

The installation is fairly easy, all the instructions are at the link above. After adding the unofficial app store I honestly couldn't work without it. For instance, I can access even more streamable services for channels here in the UK as well as other utilities to make Plex that little easier to use.

It's worth checking out.

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

Rasplex & Plex Home Theatre

2014-03-17T22:50:00.004+00:00

Recently I grew tired of my complex XBMC setup for the house and decided to see what all the fuss was about with Plex.

I'd heard about Plex many years ago as an alternative to XBMC, but at the time that was all it was, just another variant of XBMC. Targeted primarily at Mac users, I had little interest because XBMC was also available and it was very good and more customisable.

However. Plex got serious!

It's barely recognisable compared to what I remember. What stuck out for me:

Incredible ease of pairing my NAS with the Media Center's using a email address and password (plex.tv account)
Installation and setup on my Ubuntu based NAS was simple and didn't require any command line foolery
The availability of Plex for iOS, Android and the Raspberry PI (not officially supported but works great)
The great web interface allowing access from anywhere to my content
Airplay support (although this is in XBMC as well)
Built in transcoder!
Channels for BBC iPlayer, etc
Best of all, apart from the mobile apps, it was free!

Now I had a similar setup for my XBMC setup, but it was no where as simple and straight forward to set up. I didn't have to deal with any DDNS configuration, installation of a transcoder, dodgy usernames/passwords for direct access to content, VPN's, plugins, etc. It just worked.

Now I had some issues with Rasplex and the RPi, but only because I think the USB WiFi device I had was a little cheap, maybe too cheap, and it didn't work for a few boot ups, but it slammed into life for no apparent reason and started working great.

I also installed Windows 7 on to my main media centre in my living room and installed plex home theatre on top. For the moment, there doesn't appear to be an x86 lightweight variant like OpenElec or Rasplex, so this will have to do for the moment. I might consider changing this to a Ubuntu system if Windows give me any problems.

I've also purchased the Plex Pass feature, which among many other things, allowed me to use my many cloud based storage services as extensions to my own private storage. And without any effort, these locations show up on the Plex home screen :-)

I may write up some more technical explorations of Plex and any customisations I make in future. I don't see my changing for a while unless it starts doing something unexpected.

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

Upgrading Macbook Pro 13 Inch Mid 2009 - SSD Upgrade

2014-03-17T22:30:00.003+00:00

Some time ago I bought a new Macbook Pro and gave my old one to my wife. She loves it but it already had a good few years on it. It was a Macbook Pro 13 (Mid 2009) and was in need of a good home. At the time since I had my fancy new machine, so the normal maintenance cycle i'd do on a 2-3 year old system just floated by. My wife isn't a techy so naturally she put up with the bad battery life and the performance issues and just put it down to the "Crapbook" :-)

Enough was enough!

There being nothing technically wrong with the system, fans were operating as expected, memory wasn't dropping address's and even the HDD, a 500GB Hybrid Momentus XT was working great. The battery I actually replaced about 6 months ago because it was lasting all of 40 minutes, got it off ebay and was easier to install than the HDD upgrade. The only clear reason for bad performance was that after years of OS upgrades from the original version of OS X to the very latest, it was finally struggling to keep up. Thankfully there is an easy solution to this. The core bottleneck of any pre-SSD system is the HDD. Yes, it didn't have the original hard drive and yes it was using a Hybrid drive, one with a built in 8GB SSD. But, this was simply a bandage. Modern OS's do so much more with disk space than ever before.

My honest opinion on Hybrid drives is that they appealed to a market of people who simply couldn't afford the SSD drives at the time. They promised better performance without really telling you how the "magic" of instant speed improvement was accomplished. For me, the performance gain wasn't significant, but i was doing a lot of work with Aperture at the time and that requires a lot of random reads and writes. Now that SSD drives are significantly cheaper, us mere mortals can afford to stick them into our ageing systems and breath new life into them.

So I bought a 120GB SSD from Amazon along with a caddy for the 500GB Momentus XT:

I didn't know before I purchased the drive, but the Macbook Pro I was upgrading only had SATA II support and the SSD was SATA III. Not a big deal as the drive after installation worked just fine. I've yet to check on any serious performance implications, but a quick check with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test tool showed significant gains.

The process of upgrading a hard drive in one of these pre-retina Macbook Pro's is well documented by Apple and there are plenty of videos of YouTube for the same. But here is a link just in case this is what you were expecting when you arrived here.

After I sealed up the system, I originally wanted to clone the drive from the old HDD to the new SSD. However figured this was a good opportunity to get a clean OS up and running. After all, out of all the OS's i've done re-installs for, OS X requires the least amount of effort by far, so it wasn't a difficult choice.

If you do decide to do a clone, there are a couple of ways to do it. You can use a second system to perform a dd from one drive to another, use a tool like Carbon Copy Cloner or perform a restore from the Disk Utility that comes with OS X. If you don't have a second system, you can always put setup for OS X on to a USB stick and boot to it from your Mac you are upgrading. Once in, use the Disk Utility inside the installer and do a restore from external drive to internal.

Well thats it really. Thanks for reading.

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

My New Raspberry Pi & OpenElec System

2013-05-25T11:27:00.004+01:00

Been meaning to post about this one for a while, but I suppose with some actual experience using the system now i'm better placed to give some real feedback.

The Hardware

So before getting started, the following are the various bits of hardware I had to purchase from Amazon:

I already had a few SD cards lying around, so I just used an 8GB SD card that used to be in my SLR. It was actually one of these:

1 x Sandisk Ultra 30MB/s SDHC Card 8GB

Putting it together is not complex. The case I bought fits the RPI perfectly, just slots into one half and just attached the other. Couple of screws later and it's sealed. You shouldn't need to open it ever again, unless you are planning on customising the hardware i.e. using the GPIO port. I attached mine using the VESA 100 mount to the back of my TV. Plugged in the Flirc device, Wifi Adapter and power supply and the hardware setup was done. All in all, around 15 minutes.

The Software

I'm a big fan of OpenElec. Have been since I set up my first media centre more than a year ago now. It does everything you'd expect and well.

There is a specific version for the RPI (Raspberry Pi) thats fully supported and maintained, so best to download it straight from their site. Here for those who want the shortcut. They also have non-RPI versions if you are interested.

The guys over at OpenElec have been kind enough to put together a fairly good guide already. You can find it here. It's relatively straight forward. You copy the OpenElec OS image to the SD card, insert the card into your RPI and you are off! It really is that simple.

So I won't try to re-invent the wheel with super detailed instructions, but instead provide some pointers based on my experience.

I did the installation of OpenElec to my SD card using my Macbook Pro running OS X, so be comfortable with the command line, otherwise use Windows.
You will lose everything on the SD card during the installation process, so backup and remove everything from the card.
The RPI won't run an OS on a USB stick, it has to be on the SD card.
I actually discovered after I bought the power supply above that I already had several that would fit the mini-usb port on the RPI. However make sure there is enough supply. If you want to run USB devices off the USB ports on the RPI, make sure it supplies more than 1000mA, ideally around 1500mA. But of course this depends on the USB devices themselves.
Don't attempt to power a USB based hard drive that doesn't have it's own power supply. This will cause all kinds of issues for the RPI.
The RPI can just be powered off the USB on your TV, so long as your TV supplies enough juice. Be warned though, every TV is different in when it supplies the power e.g. in standby or not and may just cut the power whenever it pleases
Don't choose a complex skin like Aeon Nox, the RPI will run it, but badly!!! Use the default OpenElec skin, it has good performance.
If like me you are going to mount it to the back of a TV, then get short cables, nothing worse than going to all the effort in making a small and nimble system if you have 3 metres of HDMI cable hanging from the back
The FLIRC device is amazing. So simple to configure. Check out their site for a short video on how to use it.
I ended up using an old Sky HD+ remote paired with the FLIRC device

My Setup

So because I have a few OpenElec media centres, I have a MySQL DB and a NAS which keeps the Thumbnail content and database centralised and consistent. It turns out that as of XBMC Frodo that this kind of setup of having a centralised Thumbnail content repo isn't really required, although I stand by the decision to keep it as RPI's generally don't have much storage attached. I'm reluctant to attach an additional drive (because I want to keep the setup simple), but may consider in the future attaching a larger SD card and making thumbnails local.

Conclusions

Well i've covered some of these already above, but there are some more.

OpenElec is awesome! But don't hate the alternatives. Raspbian is a good alternative if you find OpenElec lacking in some respect. There are others like Raspbmc which offers a similar setup to OpenElec.
Highly recommend mounting the RPI unit to the back of the TV, gets it out of the way
Don't worry about the FLIRC device being out of sight behind the TV. IR devices are not lasers, they are beams of light similar to lights on a car, which means it will bounce off walls and eventually reach the FLIRC device
HDMI-CEC wasn't working with me, but I think it's because i'm using a non-Branded TV from a supermarket
There is a good guide to read if you are interested in HDMI-CEC here

Thanks for reading. Hope I helped.

And if you are looking to do something crazy different, check out this post for some inspiration

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

Asus RT-N56U Router with Stock Firmware & Sky Fibre

2013-05-18T11:02:00.004+01:00

Wow, what a nightmare Sky Fibre is. All I wanted to do was replace the crappy Sagem wireless router with my Asus Black Diamond router and it turned out to be a 3 week sprint of reading about Asuswrt, Tomato and udhcpc. Turns out that yes, it's a pain to setup, but it's definitely possible... and with the stock firmware! :-D

So, how does it all work?

Well, firstly, the Sagem router communicates the with BT OpenReach modem like any other ethernet based device, except it uses MER (MAC Encapsulated Routing) to authenticate the device so that you can't just plug in any old router. What does this actually mean? Well it means the Sagem router sends some very specific information to the OpenReach modem, the client id.

This client id is naturally not found in any configuration screen, you have to sniff it out of a DHCP packet to get it.

You have to connect your laptop/system via ethernet to the Sagem router and make sure nothing else is connected.
Then give your laptop/system a static ip.
You'll then need to fire up a packet sniffing tool like Wireshark.
If you start capturing from your ethernet port (eth0 most likely)
Then turn on the Sagem router you'll get a lot of packets come back
The one you are interested in is the DHCP packets (under protocol these are marked as DHCP).
Open it up and look for the client identifier field (should have the number 61 beside it)
Right click it and find the option to copy the value (plain text, or something similar)
If you've done it right on paste you should see something like xxx@xxx|password.
You'll need to convert that to HEX, use any old web site for this and make sure you remove spaces.

Once done, you'll need to telnet into your Asus RT-N56U. This must be enabled first in the Administration section in the web interface. Once in you'll find that udhcpc is already running (just run ps to see active process's). This is the process that negotiates the IP with the BT OpenReach modem. Copy down the name of the process, something like:

udhcpc -i eth3 -p /var/run/udhcpc0.pid -s /tmp/udhcpc -O33 -O249

Kill the existing process via killall udhcpc

Then start it again, but this time with your client identifier i.e. something like:

udhcpc -i eth3 -p /var/run/udhcpc0.pid -s /tmp/udhcpc -O33 -O249 -x 0x3d:###HEXUSR&PASSWD###

Then plug in your BT OpenReach modem into the WAN port and if it has all worked, after a couple of messages it will successfully get an IP and your internet connection will be up.

No more Sagem router! :-)

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

GeekTool - For Everything Else...

2013-02-23T22:15:00.003+00:00

So it's been some time since I last posted. Much has happened since then, some big life changing events but all good thankfully! My life has settled down a little bit now so have found myself with some free time.

I thought then it would good to start posting on blogger again; about something new and not media centre related. Although, plenty of that to come as OpenElec and XBMC has been making big waves since last year.

Over the Christmas period just past I was able to get myself a shiny new Macbook Pro Retina while out in the states. Amazing machine. I'll save you all the usual amount of "it just works", but really it just does. After getting back I immediately set about customising and getting it to a place I was happy with everything.

However, one thing I was lacking was easy ways of getting to information on the system without having to run up several apps. If I wanted to get my IP, I could either use the terminal or the network preferences, if I wanted to check out the system log I could use console or the terminal, if I wanted to check when CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) last ran a backup, i'd either run up console or the terminal.... you get the picture.

So it seemed I could do everything with the terminal, but having to type in commands time and time again would eventually frustrate me. I want the information now. And as much as I love the terminal, it drives me nuts sometimes.

To solve this challenge, I used a tool called GeekTool. GeekTool allows you to create simple desktop widgets that can either display an image, output from a command or the contents of a file. Using a combination of these you can get some fairly complex information displayed on your desktop, here is what I was able to achieve in 30 minutes or so:

I've got my IP, last 10 lines from /var/log/system.log, details of my last CCC backup, current usage of the root partition and date/time all on screen at the same time. They all update a varying intervals depending on how often I need it. The system log updates every second and the CCC stats section updates every 30 minutes. Apart from the disk usage (round graphic), everything else I was able to do out of the box. The round graphic above is actually what is called a geeklet, an extension of sorts, but in reality it's a clever apple script which changes to pre-rendered images. It can be downloaded here for those interested.

Some examples of what is seen above:

Getting the date of the last CCC backup from command line

cat /Library/Logs/CCC.log | grep "Backup Critical Files: Time" | awk '{ print $1 }' | tail -n -1

Percentage of disk space used by root partition (i.e. / ) from command line

df / | awk '{ print $5 }' | tail -n 1

Current IP Address from command line

ifconfig en0 | grep inet | awk '{ print $2 }' | tail -n 1

My terrible command line usage aside, the above will allow you display these pieces of information on your desktop via the shell Geeklet.

There are examples of other peoples setups available here if you need some inspiration.

My final note on this great tool is that for some reason, it consumes a stupid amount of memory when you create and modify geeklets. For instance, after creating the above, I noticed it was consuming around 1.2 GB of memory!!! However if you quit GeekTool and start it again, this number drops significantly.

Happy customising!

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

eMachines ER1401 Memory Upgrade

2012-04-12T19:21:00.002+01:00

Normally I wouldn't write a post for something so trivial such as a memory upgrade. In a normal ATX or AT form factor Desktop PC or even a modern laptop, it normally isn't that difficult to upgrade the system memory. In fact this was one of the first things I learnt to do when playing around with my dad's old system, an Intel 486dx based system with Windows 3.11 installed.

However for those who own a ER1401 they will know that it's form factor, case design, etc is compact and I had some challenges while doing the upgrade.

Here are some notes for others which if I had known in the first place would have helped me:

Please note that this is not a complete list of instructions and that if you attempt to do this, that you may (and probably will) cause some damage to the chassis due to the fact it was never designed to be opened!

I done the whole upgrade i.e. Opening of case, removal of old memory and installation of new and rebuild in around 30 minutes, but if you are new to this sort of thing, take your time!

Consider not doing this! It is very difficult and noisy to open the case up, at times during the upgrade I wish I hadn't, however it worked out just fine.

I used 2 x 2GB modules which were left over from my Macbook Pro upgrade. They were the exact type I needed i.e. DDR3 modules. You can also order memory from Crucial if you don't have any spare.

There aren't any custom screws it's all just Philips screw drive

There is a video on YouTube which may help you understand the process of disassembly. However it's more of a joke than an actual guide, so don't expect it to spell everything out.

The case is made up of 5 distinct parts

The plastic cradle and support

This is attached to the main body by two screws, easy to remove and must be removed.

Top Black Cover (With the power button on the top right and the VGA port on the left)

Is attached to the side plastic support and also the bottom black cover by plastic clips. When removing this start at the bottom, where you removed the cradle and slowly separate it from the edges with a flat head screwdriver (or similar implement). As you do this you will hear clicking noises as it separates. Do this for 3 out of 4 of the edges, once on the final edge, you should be able to just pull the cover off.

Side Plastic Support

Is attached to the bottom black cover by metal and plastic clips. For me this was the hardest part. I started at the top where the power button is and used the same method as above, slowly separating the side plastic support from the chassis. After removing the side panel I found I broke two of the clips... doh! However when I later assembled the parts, it went together just fine with no visible or noticeable change.If you manage to remove this without causing damage, then my hat comes off to you!

Internal Metal Cover

Easy to remove, is attached by 3 screws, little bit awkward to remove at first, but just requires a slight bend in the metal cover to remove properly.

Bottom Black Chassis (which has the other side plastic support attached to it and also the motherboard inside)

The motherboard is housed within this chassis, before removing though, you have to disconnect the CPU/GPU fan power lead and disconnect the two antenna's for the WIFI card (little gold connectors). You also have to unscrew the CPU/GPU heat sink via the 3 screws. Once disconnected and removed, the motherboard should not be attached to anything on the main chassis. Removing it requires a bit of wobbling from side to side, but should pop out with no damage to either itself or the chassis.

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

OpenElec Upgrade to 2.0 (1.95.1) aka XBMC Eden - Conclusion

2012-04-11T20:56:00.000+01:00

In my previous post I talked over the experience I had with the initial upgrade. It wasn't the smoothest of upgrades to be sure, however it's always a good upgrade when it works without my better half knowing anything has changed :-D

I also mentioned some issues I was having, specifically the following:

VGA Mode error on boot
Audio set to Analog but coming through HDMI anyway
Thumbnails on my shared drive don't seem to work with the new database, this is either because XBMC Eden index's them differently or that during the migration from the old to the new format, there was a conversion fault in the DB. However I haven't checked this out yet in more detail, could well be something entirely different.

Well the good news two out of three of these issues are solved. Details below:

VGA Mode error on boot

So it turns out that a fix that I had to put in place with a previous version of OpenElec caused problems for the newer version. Specifically the splash screen fix which previously allowed the boot screen logo to display properly however in this version results in a ugly error message. The good news is that the fix is straight forward, just remove the changes that were made to apply the fix at the link above. Excellent! Thanks to Stephan Raue for posting this solution in the previous post!

Thumbnails not showing correctly

One of the changes which happened with the introduction of Eden was a change in how Thumbnails and in general how special locations are referenced and managed. Previously I had just soft-linked the /storage/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails folder to a SAMBA location however XBMC did not like this after the upgrade. After doing some reading it became apparent that I needed to add a Path Substitution into the AdvancedSettings.xml file. I added the following above my tags:

<pathsubstitution>
<substitute>
<from>special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/</from>
<to>SMB://192.168.2.100/mysql/Thumbnail Cache/</to>
</substitute>
</pathsubstitution>

A quick restart and the Thumbnails were working like a charm again.

I also after solving the issue found an article on the OpenElec Wiki which covers this issue... doh! My google ninja skills failed me at first, alas, I learnt something new, read the OpenElec wiki first!

With regards to the audio settings. As the audio is actually working at the moment, it's not so critical that I fix this, however I want to take a better look at the weekend. Wish me luck!

If I find anything interesting, will post again.

OpenElec Upgrade to 2.0 (1.95.1) aka XBMC Eden - How it went so far...

2012-04-10T13:04:00.005+01:00

Nothing more nerve racking than preparing for a major upgrade on production hardware. Sure I could have installed the new OpenElec to a external disk then tested from there, but I prefer to jump in with both feet! So how did it go?

So I downloaded the latest image from the openelec.tv site (the 1.95.1 version which to all intensive purposes is 2.0) and extracted the contents as normal. I used my Windows laptop to do the work required below as apposed to my Macbook, simply because it was closer to me... yep I'm hardcore :-p

I then copied the new KERNEL and SYSTEM images (along with the MD5 files) over to the SAMBA location //openelec/updates on my running ER1401 system.

So far so good, system restart is then required to have OpenElec do the upgrade based on the files that I just transferred above.

Apon reboot I got the familar messages than new images had been detected and that it was upgrading. It automatically reboots then starts with the new and updated OpenElec and XBMC.

However, as it was booting for the first time, I received an error message indicating that the incorrect VGA Mode specified was incorrect. I knew this to be false since I had applied the boot screen fix before and this was adjusted to vga=792, it was also reporting a number I had not seen before. As of yet I've not investigated this further.

Skipping this message, I was then presented with the OpenElec boot screen as normal, albeit not in full perspective due to the above issue. Once the screen disappeared, only a black cursor "X" remained on the screen. No error message, no immediate issue was clear.

After some investigation though it turned out that because I was using a MySQL database on my NAS as the backend for XBMC, it was having issues migrating the database to the new XBMC Eden format. I found this error in the /storage/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.log file, however as the log is now gone I cannot share this with you, but you can't miss it if this is happening to you, it keeps printing it.

Just as a note at this point, you have to re-enable SSH support as the guys over at OpenElec have disabled it by default. It's easy to do, simply create a file called "ssh_enable" in the ConfigFiles folder via SAMBA. Username and password are the default as before. Official instructions on this are at the OpenElec site.

So I renamed the AdvancedSettings.xml file in the ConfigFiles folder and done a restart and bingo! XBMC Eden was now showing on my screen. Things to note at this point.

Audio was working already although I want to investigate it further. Currently it's set to Analog however I'm using audio over HDMI.
I had to adjust the screen over scan, but I also had to do this with previous versions of OpenElec

After I changed to my favourite skin and did the normal amount of customisation, I tested Audio and Video and both work great. All the hardware (apart from the built in wireless which I did not test) seems to work fine.

However as mentioned above I had to disconnect from the MySQL DB to get XBMC to load without looping infinately with errors. To fix this I created a copy of the original database and modified the AdvancedSettings.xml to use the copy. After restarting OpenElec and monitoring the progress via SSH I could see it was now working. No clear idea on why it failed originally, except that I do have other devices on my network using the same database.

XBMC Eden is now using the copied version of the database which I will migrate my other devices over to once I've squared off my ER1401. Given that this is a prerelease though, it's actually very stable!

Issues still open which if I find fixes for will post on:

VGA Mode error on boot
Audio set to Analog but coming through HDMI anyway
Thumbnails on my shared drive don't seem to work with the new database, this is either because XBMC Eden index's them differently or that during the migration from the old to the new format, there was a conversion fault in the DB. However I haven't checked this out yet in more detail, could well be something entirely different.

OpenElec 2.0 Beta Released! Time to roll sleeves up...

2012-04-09T17:03:00.000+01:00

So after the release of XBMC Eden, it was only a matter of time before OpenElec was also updated to include the latest version of XBMC. The guys over at openelec.tv have now also released the 1st beta version of OpenElec (1.95.1) or 2.0. Good times!

As i'm running a system which is classed as "Generic" i.e. doesn't require a custom build, time will tell how the update/installation goes. What i've read so far is that not only is there significant changes on a OS level within OpenElec, but also there have been changes to the DB that XBMC maintains, so i'm not expecting the upgrade to go smooth, but here goes nothing!

The guys over at OpenElec.tv have put together a wiki on how to upgrade, so give it a go yourself if you feel up to it.

Will post my results after the upgrade has been completed.

Image can be downloaded here.

UPDATE: To see how it went check out this post!

Blue Pick

2012-04-07T10:38:00.001+01:00

Great shot of a friend of mine playing guitar with a well used blue pick.

About time... 500px plugin for Aperture :-)

2012-02-26T09:01:00.000+00:00

Been looking for a quicker way to upload photos to 500px for a while now, even considered coding one myself, however not being a OS X developer, this was not going to happen any time soon.

Works great, recommended!

You can download it here:

https://github.com/iKenndac/500px-Aperture-Uploader/downloads

Instructions for installation as per the ReadMe:

To install the plugin, place it in ~/Library/Application Support/Aperture/Plug-Ins/Export. This folder tree may well be missing on your Mac - if so, just create them. Note: The Library folder in your home folder is hidden by default on Lion - you can get to it by holding down the Option/Alt key and choosing "Library" from the Finder's "Go" menu.

Thanks to Daniel Kennett, hopefully 500px will embrace this on there Apps page.

UPDATE: Author has released a new version!

Keyboard Trousers... :-S

2012-02-21T12:52:00.000+00:00

Can't imagine this is very ergonomic or even safe to wash! But that aside, nice idea, just can't imagine you'd fit into any real office tapping away at your crotch while looking at a screen.

http://www.webpronews.com/exclusive-keyboard-pants-so-you-can-dance-and-still-type-browse-etc-2012-02

Smile!

2012-02-18T09:59:00.002+00:00

Rose in Spotlight

2012-02-15T23:28:00.002+00:00

Nikon Lens

2012-02-12T19:52:00.002+00:00

It's my Nikon Nikkor DX 18-200mm. Great all round lens. What I shoot most of my photos with.

Orange & Gold

2012-02-12T00:39:00.002+00:00

So this is a photo i've already posted on 500px. Sadly not yet figured out a way to have 500px post to blogger automatically, so manual for the moment!

The golds and oranges (peach?) caught my eye.

ER1401 and OpenElec Standby Fix

2011-09-15T20:28:00.001+01:00

Ok, so took some reading and exploring to fix this one but it's actually relatively straight forward to fix. I actually don't use the standby/suspend feature that much because I'm a bit of a hippy and would rather it was just off. However it annoyed me that it didn't work.

What was the problem?

Well after loading XBMC on OpenElec, going to Shutdown then to the submenu for Suspend, the screen would go blank but would return within seconds. I had seen this problem before on other Linux based OS's but never got around to understanding why this was happening or investigating a fix.

If you want the fix without the background, go to the bottom of this article :-)

Well for others, here it is along with some additional information that might help. These steps might also assist folk with other Linux based OS's, but of course, no guarantee's, it all comes down to playing around with settings and seeing what happens.

Log files to monitor during testing

/var/log/messages

This log file stores messages logged by all parts of the OS including applications (most commonly referred to as syslog messages). However not all messages are stored here and some applications specifically log messages elsewhere. You will see some messages during Suspend appear here, but for the most part, they won't help. But always worth checking.

/storage/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.log

This is the XBMC log file. It's normally deleted during the start of each boot but not between suspend sessions. It has more information on whats going on during an attempted suspend however still not enough to indicate what might be causing problems. It may help you if for instance something within XBMC is causing problems with the suspend.

dmesg

Most likely though it's a device which is keeping your system from going into standby, so monitoring the output of dmesg is key. It should tell you what device is requesting the suspend and which is requesting the resume.

So with some log files to monitor, I could see that my requests from my IR Remote Control via a Microsoft IR Receiver were being accepted and putting the device to sleep, however for some reason another device was waking my ER1401 straight away. Strangely enough this device appears to be USB based however is not one which is plugged into one of the external ports (I only have one and it's the remote control IR reciever)

Based on this information alone, it was time to start disabling devices abilities to resume or wake the system from Suspend (S3 Mode).

You can see what devices have this ability from the output from cat /proc/acpi/wakeup:

root ~/.xbmc/temp # cat /proc/acpi/wakeup

Device S-state Status Sysfs node

SMB0 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:01.1

US15 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:04.0

US12 S3 *enabled pci:0000:00:04.1

NMAC S5 *enabled pci:0000:00:0a.0

P0P1 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:08.0

HDAC S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:07.0

MXR0 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:10.0

BR11 S4 *disabled

BR12 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:12.0

BR13 S4 *disabled

BR14 S4 *disabled

BR15 S4 *disabled

BR16 S4 *disabled

BR17 S4 *disabled

USB0 S3 *enabled pci:0000:00:02.0

USB2 S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:02.1

This is the output for a ER1401, please keep this in mind, if you are reading this and have a different hardware setup, this will look completely different.

You can find out which devices these are from the output of lspci:

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a2)

00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] LPC Bridge (rev a2)

00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SMBus (rev a1)

00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a1)

00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Co-Processor (rev a2)

00:01.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a1)

00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a1)

00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a1)

00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a1)

00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a1)

00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] IDE (rev a1)

00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP72XE/MCP72P/MCP78U/MCP78S High Definition Audio (rev a1)

00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)

00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SATA Controller (non-AHCI mode) (rev a2)

00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP77 Ethernet (rev a2)

00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:12.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor HyperTransport Configuration

00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Address Map

00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor DRAM Controller

00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control

00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Link Control

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C77 [GeForce 8200] (rev a2)

04:00.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe

After disabling different ones I found that US12 was causing the problems:

00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a1)

To disable this specific device and fix the suspend issues, execute the following command:

echo US12 > /proc/acpi/wakeup

This will then set US12 to disabled in /proc/acpi/wakeup. Go ahead and try to suspend and this will now work as expected. If you have Wake On Lan configured or a remote control, you can now wake up the device also using these methods.

Note this fix is not permanent and has to be applied on each cold boot. If you are using OpenElec RC5 then sadly there is no automated way to apply this fix. You could like I did set button 0 on your remote (if you have one) to execute a python script which applies this. Or if you are brave enough, get the latest development build version of OpenElec and put this command into a shell script in /storage/.config/autostart.sh. It will then execute every time you boot and apply the fix.

Other sources which helped me investigate this:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Enable_Wake-On-Device

If you have any questions I'll do my best to assist, but always best to check with the guys over at the OpenElec forum first.

OpenElec/XBMC with Airplay/Airtunes

2011-09-13T12:39:00.001+01:00

In an effort to build the most powerful HTPC system that you can have you have to consider not just the technologies which are useful to yourself, but others in the household. More often than not my explanations on DLNA, UPNP, SMB or AFS go down like the titanic and no matter what measures I put in place it never seems simple enough in reality to demonstrate.

So what am I rambling on about?

Update 1: I wrote this article some time ago now, but much has changed since then. Firstly OpenElec was released as final and has been updated a few times since then. I'm now on 1.0.2 for instance. The guide was written for RC5, however the instructions should still be applicable.

Update 2: If you are struggling to get this working or it just won't work, then don't worry. The latest version of XBMC Eden (currently RC2) has Airplay and AirTunes support built in!

http://xbmc.org/download/

Well, in the scenario where my better half, or a friend comes round (or if i'm just lazy) and wants to share something with us, say a video, slideshow or soundtrack, yeh you could all huddle around a tiny mobile phone screen, or you could blast that content on the frigging TV! Thats right, blast it! But obviously the TV should remain intact. So maybe go easy on the blasting. On second thought, don't be blasting anything, lets instead stream it.

How do we make this happen? Well there is a number of ways. At the moment, out of the box (and after some tweaks in the Network Services screen in XBMC) you can stream music, video's or photos on to the screen via UPNP. However you need a separate app for this to make this happen from your device, at least for iOS devices, I know some Android phones come with DLNA support, but it's certainly not standard and built in across all known devices (although there is no reason why not). Having my own devices prep'd for this is easy, but again I have go through explaining another method to somebody else, wouldn't it be easier if there was just one solid protocol?

The other way, is to have your HTPC support the dark side. Not wield it with a light saber, that would be silly. But it would look cool. Maybe I'll look into this later! But instead have it support a non-open closed source proprietary network protocol, namely Airplay and Airtunes.

If you've reached this post, then most likely you already know what these are and are looking for me to explain already how this is done. Well I'll skip the explanation on what they are and point interested people to the following pages on Airplay and Airtunes if they wish to read more on what they provide.

So down to business. Some steps:

Before going ahead with these keep in mind I've only done this for my eMachine ER1401. So you may have to take extra steps or it may not work for you at all if your are using a different setup.

Acquire the Airplay/Airtunes (Airplayer Suite) from the OpenElec Forums (Ultraman has kindly done the hard work to make this happen). You can download it from here. Note that this is the 32bit version.

Extract it and copy it to the Downloads folder on your OpenElec system. OpenElec shares folders via the Windows File Sharing protocol so you should be able to locate this folder via \\openelec.local\Downloads

Once in there you need to copy the folder you extracted from the downloads directory to the addon directory. By default the addons directory isn't accessible via Windows File Sharing so you need to log into your OpenElec system via SSH (Putty or next best thing) to make this transfer happen

Once logged in via SSH goto /storage/.xbmc/addons

cd /storage/.xbmc/addons

Copy the folder you extracted earlier to the addons folder

cp -R ~/downloads/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite .

You then need to create two soft-links or sym-links, first change directory to the lib directory for the addon

cd /storage/.xbmc/addons/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite/lib

Create the links

ln -s /usr/lib/libssl.so.1.0.0 libssl.so.0.9.8
ln -s /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 libcrypto.so.0.9.8

Now you should be sorted. The plugin won't start automatically by itself on boot so you need to start the service manually. It turns out this is only the case if your are using RC5 build of OpenElec. If you are using a newer DEVEL build seemingly this works automatically.

To start the service manually execute the following command:

/storage/.xbmc/addons/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite/bin/Airplayer-Suite.service

Once executed you should see a message on screen on XBMC saying Airplayer Service started. Sadly because I'm using RC5 I cannot have this start automatically but I do have the command above being executed by a python script I wrote when I click the number 0 on my remote control. Maybe I'll cover this in another post if needed.

If you are seeing errors or having problems, obviously it could be any number of problems. So I recommend you review two keys logs on this:

/storage/.xbmc/userdata/addon_data/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite/airplayer.log
/storage/.xbmc/userdata/addon_data/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite/shairport.log

Hope this was helpful. Any questions, let me know in the comments. But also check out the OpenElec forum thread on this topic.

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmaclean

Replacing Mount on Nikon 55-200mm Lens

2011-09-09T12:41:00.001+01:00

Ok, so yep. Photographers worst nightmare next to batteries running out during a special event. Dropping the camera. If i'm honest it didn't drop as a result of slippery fingers but because the tripod I was using wasn't properly secure. Doh!

So, after getting over the initial shock, I inspected the damage. As expected it wasn't pretty. The lens specifically was a Nikon 55-200mm lens which if you are versed with Nikon or lenses in general will know that it's a zoomer for amateurs (read cheap lens), hence why Nikon put a plastic mount on the lens (so that if you do drop it, it doesn't break all the internals of the expensive camera).

Anyway, so the mount of the lens was broken but the camera was fine.

After a little research and a lucky find I contacted Nikon and ordered the spare part for the bayonet mount (part no. JAA79351-F).

Once it had arrived I got started on replacing the mount. I won't go through every step, someone over at this site here put together some instructions on how to do this, so credit goes to that author. The instructions though are for the 18-55mm lens, however the mount itself is exactly the same as the one for the 55-200mm lens.

Some pointers before you decide to go ahead with the replacement:

This is not for the faint of heart, if you enter into fixing this, make sure you are willing to buy a new one if you destroy the lens. Although in hindsight it seems easy now, I was "bricking it" while doing the replacement.
Patience is key, take your time.
If you don't have the confidence, go to a Nikon certified repair shop. They may charge more than doing it yourself but if it means that much to you then it's worth it.
Consider just buying a new one if your lens has more than just a broken mount.
Make sure you have a very small philips screwdriver, or a small flat head.
Do all the work on top of a large sheet of white paper (or smaller sheets taped together). This is so that if any parts fall out you can see them, but also because I like to draw where the screw came from so that assembly is easier.
The spare part doesn't come with instructions, this isn't Ikea people!

Additional information while doing the replacement:

The instructions provided at the address above are for the 18-55mm lens so keep that in mind that some parts of the photos provided in the instructions may look different
The 55-200mm lens has a different aperture ring compared to the 18-55mm. The 55-200mm lens has a longer zoomer limiter (the long plastic bit coming out of the aperture ring).
Make sure you dettach the zoomer limiter from the lens itself before pulling the mount and aperture ring out of the lens casing. OR you can keep the aperture ring there if it's not damaged and detach it from the plastic mount.
The bracket for the wire that secures it to the plastic mount is different than the one shown in the instructions in the site above, however it still fits the new mount.
Take a break before doing the assembly :-)

After going through all of the above, I found that the mount works perfectly now and the lens is taking great shots again.

OpenElec & Remote Control Setup

2011-08-27T16:44:00.004+01:00

Updated 20/05/2013: Openelec keymaps have moved from /Userdata/keymaps.xml to /Userdata/keymap/keyboard.xml

Ok, so thought it would be worth noting this down for others as well. I use a One For All Smart Control to control my TV, Xbox 360, Surround System and SkyHD box. I figured that it would be a natural extension to include the new ER1401 system into this mix.

Note: For those coming straight to this article, this is my system running OpenElec i.e. XBMC, i've written articles before on how you can build one of these systems if you can get the hardware.

So, thankfully after a rummage through my "man cupboard" I found a old Microsoft Media Center remote and IR receiver which by luck works out of the box with OpenElec. So I configured my One For All remote control to send Media Center remote control signals and bush bash bosh, I had control of my OpenElec system.

However, a lot of the key functions I was used to on XBMC Constellation just didn't work. For instance, I couldn't access the Now Playing screen (also called Fullscreen mode). I also wanted to be able to refresh the video library when I needed and also adjust the audio latency on videos without having to go through lots of menus.

Thankfully though since the remote is already working all that is required is some tweaking of the mapping of the remote signals to XBMC commands. This is done via the keymap.xml file. I found a fantastic version of a customised one here so credit goes to this author. First you need to download a copy of what is found at the link above and then save it to the Userdata/keymaps directory.




    
       XBMC.ReloadSkin()
       Screenshot
    
    
 FullScreen 
 ToggleWatched  
 SendClick(25,14)
    
  


     
       XBMC.CleanLibrary(video)
       XBMC.UpdateLibrary(video)
     



    
 AudioDelayMinus
 AudioDelayPlus 
    



    
 ZoomOut
 ZoomIn 
    


  
    
      Close
    
  
  
    
      Close

This is easily done because OpenElec shares the Userdata folder over SMB (Windows File Sharing). Once done just restart OpenElec and this will work. Don't worry about the article being for Harmony remote, the keycap.xml file doesn't map the keys directly to IR signals, it maps keys to functions. The mapping of signals to keys is done here:

/usr/share/irtrans/remotes/mediacenter.rem

There is more information on how this works also in the post above.

Now I can use my One For All Smar

If you found this post helpful, consider becoming a patreon, i'm a keen coffee drinker and always appreciate the help.

https://www.patreon.com/danielmacleant Control remote with my Media Center IR Receiver to control XBMC running on OpenElec :-)