Daniel Maclean

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

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 scree

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

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 !

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