How to Watch BBC iPlayer on your TV while abroad

UK TV streaming services like iPlayer, All 4, My 5 and ITV Hub check that you're resident in the UK before allowing you to watch any content.

That usually means that when you go on holiday abroad or move to a different country long-term, access to BBC iPlayer films and TV shows isn't possible any more, even if you still have a UK TV licence. 

Of course, you could download the things you want to watch before you leave the UK, but what if you are moving abroad for a longer time, or want to watch new shows or live TV channels? The answer is to use a VPN or Virtual Private Network. A VPN allows you to look like you're watching from the UK even if you're not physically there.

The problem with a lot of VPN solutions however is their complicated set-up, with lots of technical options or subscriptions. Many also only allow you to watch iPlayer from a laptop or tablet, or slow down your other Internet browsing.  Wouldn't it be better if you could watch BBC iPlayer or C4 on your "big TV" like you normally do at home?

Now there's a solution to allow you to do just that. Watch All 4, iPlayer and other UK streaming services, on your normal TV (or iPad, laptop or phone) with just a simple plug and play solution which is up and running in less than 5 minutes.

We send you a box which simply plugs into your Internet router and also into your TV/Sky box, and you can instantly start watching UK streaming services just like you did from your living room TV in the UK.

The cost is just €4.99 per month with a €25 set-up cost. If you're interested in learning more, just fill out our form below and we'll get in touch to arrange delivery of your box. You could be watching BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub catch-up services again in just a couple of days!

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4G vs BT

Update 2: Just purchased a new 4G USB modem E3372 LTE/4G 150 Mbps USB Dongle and am now getting close to 50Mbps download on Vodafone, maybe I won't need FTTC when it finally arrives!





Update: I've now added a MIMO 4G antenna to my set-up which improves signal strength and stability.  I've noticed an improvement in stability (staying connected) and also speeds have improved to around 30Mbps.


So the date for the 'superfast' enablement of my village exchange, Coldingham, moved again.  Without even a hint of being kept 'in the loop' by Digital Scotland, the date quietly slipped again to January - June 2017 and a request for more information via their website produced a reply (after a month - a month!) that said "The predicted timescale for Coldingham exchange is January – June 2017".  Genius.  Glad I waited a month to be told exactly what I could find out myself from the website.  So after talking about it for a while, I've decided to take matters into my own hands.

I'd been dabbling with 4G connectivity for a while, we're lucky to be served by both o2 and Vodafone with reasonable signal strengths from both networks.   The problem being, how do you distribute a 4G signal around the house, and how much do you want to pay for the pleasure - Mobile data has historically been quite an expensive form of everyday connectivity.

Step up Vodafone who are now offering 50GB of data allowance for £25 per month.  It's not cheap, but a quick word with their retention department saw that come down to £20.   I got in!  50GB of usage is half what I get with my fixed line provider (A&A) but it would be enough if I split my usage between the 2 'lines'.

This is where working for a networking equipment manufacturer comes in useful.  Using my existing network hardware I can split my Internet traffic between the 2 providers on a per device basis.  This means my laptop and TV can use the 4G, while my tablet uses my fixed line broadband for example.  Where I need the extra download/upload speed I use the 4G, leaving the less important devices on the slow fixed line.  All of this works seamlessly over my existing WiFi and if one link fails, all the traffic moves over to the working link.  For anyone interested, I use Internet traffic shaping on a Meraki MX65.

I also use a Huawei 4G dongle attached to a mobile router (Meraki Z1), placed high in the loft to get the strongest 4G signal, and this is ethernet connected back to my main router (MX65) which performs the link sharing.

For now I'm happy to pay for both links as it gives me the redundancy I need to be able to work from home without interruption, but it also gives me a huge boost in speed which BT are still not able to offer.

A speed test of my new 4G link - 4.5X faster download and 30X faster upload!

Where previously I had a 5.5Mbps download speed and a paltry 750Kbps upload (and I have to pay extra to get that!) I now have access to 20Mbps download AND upload via the Vodafone 4G.  When working from home, that extra upload speed is really very useful, and saves a huge amount of time.



So BT, Openreach, Digital Scotland - you're too slow, you don't give people enough information about what's happening, and you can't tell me what, if anything, I will receive when you do finally get your act together.  Until then, I'll use my own knowledge and skills to help myself and others in Coldingham to get faster rural broadband.

Other people doing the same:
http://www.agri-broadband.co.uk/press
http://notspotbroadband.com/broadband/3g-4g/

How to make your Nest Thermostat email you when "auto-away"

While Nest are still to release details of their API, some clever people have already deconstructed the methods by which your Nest Thermostat (and Nest Protect) talks back to Nest Cloud HQ and have released a PHP script which can pull data from Nest Cloud HQ, allowing you to do with it, whatever you want!

Some examples of the things that I am currently doing:

1. Graphing my internal Nest temperature reading using PRTG

2. Capturing and emailing me when Nest thinks I'm "away" and when i'm back.

3. Monitoring the internal battery voltage of the thermostat - could potentially be used to notify me of a power cut whilst away from home (for example, if the voltage drops below a certain level).

Gathering and using all this data first relies on capturing it with the improvised Nest API.

Here's what you'll need to do:

1. Visit the link above and download the nest.class.php file
2. Publish the above on a web server that supports PHP, and has Internet access
3. Create another PHP file that "includes" the above class and gathers and presents the data you want.  There are examples on GitHub, and I've included my own hacked together example here:

 <?php  
 header('Content-Type: text/xml');  
 require_once('nest.class.php');  
 // Your Nest username and password.  
 $username = 'your@nest.email.address';  
 $password = 'YourNestPassword';  
 // The timezone you're in  
 // See http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php for the possible values.  
 date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');  
 $nest = new Nest($username, $password);  
 // Get the device information:  
 $infos = $nest->getDeviceInfo();  
 // Start XML Output  
 echo "<nest>";  
 // Print the current temperature  
 printf("<nesttemp> %.01f </nesttemp> \n", $infos->current_state->temperature, $infos->scale);  
 // Print the current humidity  
 printf("<nesthumidity> %.01f </nesthumidity> \n", $infos->current_state->humidity, $infos->scale);  
 //Print Auto Away 0 or 1  
 printf("<autoaway>%.0f</autoaway>", $infos->current_state->auto_away);  
 //Print Manual Away 0 or 1  
 printf("<manualaway>%.0f</manualaway>", $infos->current_state->manual_away);  
 //Print Battery Level  
 printf("<battery>%.02f</battery>", $infos->current_state->battery_level);  
 //Close XML  
 echo "</nest>";  
 ?>  

When you GET this php file, it shows XML output like this:

 <nest>  
 <nesttemp>24.6</nesttemp>  
 <nesthumidity>39.0</nesthumidity>  
 <autoaway>0</autoaway>  
 <manualaway>0</manualaway>  
 <battery>3.94</battery>  
 </nest>  

4. Now using something like PRTG (free for a licence of 10 sensors) and the HTTP XML Sensor type, you can GET your PHP script every few minutes (I wouldn't recommend more than once every 5 minutes), and have PRTG automatically interpret the XML into sensor values.  All you need to do is tell PRTG the full web address of your php file and also which XML tags you want to capture.  The sensors it produces will look like the ones shown below:

5.  Lastly, once you have the data captured, graphed etc, you can set-up a notification within PRTG to send an email when a certain value is seen on a sensor.  In our case, to email us when the Auto Away sensor = 1

I've found that setting a single threshold trigger when the value = 1 and then another notification when the condition clears seems to work best - rather than 2 separate threshold triggers for 1 and 0.

There are numerous other things you could do with this depending on what you want to monitor and the Nest API allows you to SET certain parameters as well as GET them.

5 things I wish IFTTT.com would support

Having been less than complimentary about blog posts starting with "X things...." I now produce a blog post with exactly that title.

If you haven't heard or used IFTTT yet, you need to learn about it.  It's not an understatement to say that this service, or others like it, could become the backbone of machine-machine (software to software) automation.  For a home automation geek like myself, it opens lots of opportunities.  I'm already starting to use it for processing emails and alerting from my IP garage door project.

However, there are a few things I would love to see IFTTT include on their roadmap....

1. AND functionality.  For example, I want to combine 2 triggers, so that if both of them are true at the same time, then the action is taken. Example: If you receive an SMS from The Boss AND it's after 6pm THEN reply with "I'll deal with this in the morning"
2. Add an HTTP POST channel.  This would allow IFTTT to send an HTTP POST request to a web site/script of your choice based on a trigger.  The script (written in PHP for example) could perform, well, anything!  There is a work-around however.  For me, a great use of this would be to auto-generate a credit voucher for CheekySMS when I receive a specific SMS that tells me someone paid for credit.
3. Introduce a Nest channel :) - I know Nest (Thermostats and Smoke Alarms) are already building an API, so wouldn't it be great if we could get things to happen based on temperature or potential dangerous events in our homes.  WeMo and Philips Hue are already supported so full home automation with IFTTT doesn't look too far away.  X10 aside, a standard home automation protocol has long alluded us, but with a service like this, it becomes less of a problem.  Device manufactures such as Nest, and Philips can focus on delivering great hardware (and APIs) and let services like IFTTT provide the middleware to translate between them all.
4. Introduce a SIP voice channel - Alerting by SMS or email on your smartphone is all very well, but call me old fashioned, what really gets my attention is when the phone rings!  Just an automated, text to speech service would do!
5. Introduce a text search capability - By this I mean, provide a specific web page URL to IFTTT and trigger on a content change or a specific item of text within that web page.  Great for alerting based on a price change on your favourite online store, or maybe getting an alert when tickets to a popular concert get released.

If you're using IFTTT already, share your stories, or let me know how you could make use of these ideas.

My DIY Garage Door IP Control

It wasn't until I was 100 miles from home that I remembered I'd left the door to my new garage wide open!  There was nothing I could do about it until I got home again 8 hours later, so it got me thinking about a way of controlling it remotely.  I already have a wireless key-fob, but I wanted something with a bit more range and so my search for an IP enabled garage door began.  There are some ready-made solutions by the big manufacturers but they are expensive and somewhat restrictive.

The first step was to see what I could do with the Garador Garamatic 7 electric "motor" I already used (in combination with the key-fob).  Luckily, like all Garador electrically operated doors, it's possible to add an external impulse button to start/stop the door travel cycles.  Effectively this is just an electrical short across 2 connections inside the control unit and is usually used for a push button start/stop or a manual key switch.  See figures 10/11 in the Garador manual.

Next I found an Ethernet connected relay that included an SNMP and HTTP interface, a really nice piece of kit with a thousand uses!  There are a number of these on the market, but this one came from a UK based distributor and most importantly had the HTTP interface/API that I planned to use to pass commands from my smart phone.  Additionally it also had digital inputs on board.  Although this wasn't essential, I figured that being able to sense when the garage door was closed was also quite important - I could have used a webcam I suppose - I might still do!



Lastly, the Ethernet connection to the garage was accomplished (in the short term at least) using a pair of TP-Link powerline adapters.  To my surprise, these worked across multiple RCD units.

The connection to the door motor control unit was made using 2-core cable, into the "Normally Open" and "Common" connections on the Ethernet relay.  In order to start the travel cycle of the door, the relay only needed to close for a second, so the pulse feature of this relay was ideal for this.  For each pulse of the relay, the door will open, stop, close, stop etc but it will also stop automatically when the door reaches the end of it's travel as normal.  During testing, I was using the web interface built into the relay.

Next was the sensor to detect the state of the door.  With the relay having the ability to take digital inputs, I decided to buy a cheap reed switch usually used with household burglar alarms.  The switch was placed in a static location at the top of the door frame, while the magnet - stuck to the door - would travel as the door opened and closed.  It took some trial and error to make sure they were positioned correctly, especially as the working space was very limited when the door was closed.  The wires from the switch could be hidden nicely along the door track with the help of some cable ties.

The reed switch wires came back to the digital input 1 and ground connections on the relay so that when the door was closed, the digital input was high.

That all worked nicely, but I was still controlling and monitoring it all from the web interface on my laptop.  What I really wanted was a quick Android App!  There is a generic app to control the relay available on the Play Store but I wanted something a bit more customised...

I've been using App Inventor since it's early days, and it is more than powerful enough

to code a quick UI with HTTP GET calls to the URL which controls the pulse command on the relay and the URL to get an XML status of the relay.  The XML status contains the status of all elements of the relay, many of which I wasn't using, so I had to parse the output to capture the Digital Input element I was interested in.   I also added a quick "pin pad" login in case my phone ever gets "borrowed".  It's very simple, ugly, but perfectly functional!

There are a number of improvements I will make over time, including tidying up the Ethernet and power connections to the relay.  I could also perhaps add a second reed switch to tell me that the door is fully open.  Therefore if neither digital input is reading closed, I know the garage door must be stuck half open.  However, generally I'm really pleased with the result, never again will I be caught out, miles from home wondering if I shut the garage door behind me!

UPDATE: I've now added a 1-Wire DS18B20 Temperature Sensor which I purchased on ebay, to the relay via it's dedicated 1-wire input pins.  It really was plug and play, and now I can also read the temperature in the garage.  You will need this DS18B20 pinout....

Discussing broadband over the garden fence

A recent article in the online Telegraph about seeking better broadband speed, had me shaking my head. The news often does this, not because the subject makes me sad but because of the inane, dumbed down way it is presented.  In this case, it's the advice given that gets me typing.

Read the article if you like but I have paraphrased it here for you:
Question: Does broadband speed on the same exchange, vary between ISPs?
Answer: Yes, ask your neighbours for their recommendations.

All other things (internal wiring) being equal, I agree that the maximum (sync) speed you will achieve is going to be roughly similar to that of your neighbours, but ask your average neighbour for their opinion of their own Internet Service Provider and you will probably get such a biased, subjective view, it's almost not worth boiling the kettle.  It certainly is not advice I would be offering in a national newspaper column.

So if speed is not the end game, what else should you be looking for in an ISP?  For me, the biggest factor is consistency and quality, things that are much harder to measure and therefore advertise.  So if you do find an ISP that manages to measure and publish these things, surely they are worth a look.

I don't work for Andrews & Arnold (although they seem like a company I would like to work for) but I have recently become a customer of theirs, based purely on the fact that they provide measurable quality of my connection.  They have nothing to hide behind, and no basis for excuses when something isn't quite right.  Rarely have I found any service provider (Internet or otherwise) where I am confident that they are aware of something not being "quite right", before I am.  I hesitate to say "problem" because a problem occurs after something has gone wrong.  Measuring quality is about trying to prevent problems occurring in the first place, or catching them early and having the data to evidence it.

I too measure some aspects of my connection.  It may be basic, but the graph below proves to me that the consistency of throughput has improved considerably since my swap.

See if you can spot where I changed ISP!

More subtly shown here, but of arguably higher importance, is the reduction in packet loss too.

Even when averaged over 1 day, a packet loss reduction is clearly visible.  So clear that I circled it in blue!

So why isn't everyone using A&A?  It seems the vast majority do not have sufficient technical interest to care about how their ISP works or that it works well.  It's also because we have been conditioned (often by BT themselves) to expect something for nothing - £5 per month for 6 months is their current offer - but broadband is not a commodity like gas and electricity, it is just as important to many people, but the product you get out of the pipe is not the same quality and therefore not the same price - If you want broadband advice, and you don't live next door to me, read the educated, industry press!

Google Nexus 4 available, Play Store - not so much

08:12 or thereabouts, Google pressed play on the sale of the Nexus 4 in the UK.  From the online noise in the preceding days it was quite obvious there was going to be a rush.  Anyone waiting for the polite "Notify Me" email to tell them the shop was open, has probably missed all the boats leaving today.

The Play Store didn't handle the rush too well to start with, it took me multiple attempts to get the device in my basket and check-out, and even now I have an order number, I'm not totally convinced the order has gone through!

I saw this a lot

Being the self-confessed geek that I am, I was also monitoring the Play Store to get a heads-up on when it opened for business (using PRTG HTTP Advanced Sensor if you're interested).  This graph shows how the server response times were steady all night, right up until the device went on sale!

The scale is in milliseconds response time to download the Nexus 4 16GB product page.

Wish me luck in trying to find out if I have a new phone in the pipeline, or if I have to join the back of the queue...

UPDATE: You'll be pleased to hear, I've received an email confirming my order :)

International Characters with PHP and MySQL

I'm currently writing an android application that pulls data from a MySQL database via a PHP script "API" and have come up against a problem whereby text that contains international characters with accents are replaced in my app with a question mark.  Fraçais comes out as Fran?ais.

After a fair bit of Google abuse and knowing that the solution lay somewhere in a UTF-8 character set, it came down to 2 things, and I thought I would share the solution for those who might also be struggling.

Firstly, I defined the utf-8 character set in the header response of my PHP API script:



header('Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8');


That didn't work on its own, but it did solve the issue for characters that I manually echo'd from php, so I knew the problem had to be with the database.


I also had to define the character set for the database connection:



mysql_set_charset('utf8');


I defined this right after the connection to the database is made so that it applies to the last made connection.  You can also define a specific connection.

Virtualbox high CPU usage - a solution

I've been playing around with Virtualbox recently to host an Asterisk PBX on my Windows 2003 server.  Asterisk (or more accurately, Trixbox) comes as an ISO and uses CentOS flavour of Linux.  However, I've noticed - as have lots of other people - that the Virtualbox process uses quite a lot of CPU even when nothing is actually happening.  After some searching and a few failed solutions, I've come across one that works very well. I've set up another virtual machine in Virtualbox, set the base memory very low (4MB) and set it running.  It doesn't boot up with any OS, it just complains and fails about not having a boot disc, but strangely it drops my CPU on the server from 17% down to a more normal 2%.  Trixbox runs just as smoothly as it did before!

How to reset Motorola WiNG 5 Controller to Factory Defaults

I searched and searched so you don't have to!  If you want to reset the password on a Motorola controller running WiNG 5, you need to connect to the console and login as "reset / FactoryDefault".  No need to thank me!  Really, they should make this information more readily accessible...!

An alternative to iTunes Software

Like millions of other people I own an iPod. I bought it a few years ago, not because I feel the need to own everything with an Apple logo on it,  but because it's small, very portable and because I like the ubiquitous support for car connections and the myriad of accessories.   In short it's the ecosystem around the product that makes it so attractive, not what Apple created in the hardware. And it's certainly not what Apple have created in the software either.

I dislike the perceived requirement to buy into the whole Apple experience just to use my 8GB music player, and iTunes is the pinnacle of my dislike.  I'm not going to get on my box about how inflated and overpowering the software is, because I don't need it.  I don't buy music from Apple and I have a product that doesn't support video or Apps, i just want to put music onto my music player and have it do the job it was made for.

So I wanted to share an alternative called SharePod. Now I don't have any affiliation with SharePod or its author but if you too own an iPod for the purpose of playing music, then I recommend you download it and try it out.  It's free, lightweight, and you don't even have to install it, it works straight off as an executable.  I like the no nonsense way it instantly displays the music already on the device,  and allows me to drag and drop my DRM-free mp3s onto it.   You do still need your proprietary white cable though!

WiFi as a Service

When the words "Wifi" and "Cloud" are used in the same sentence, it's usually in reference to a ubiquitous provider based in St Albans.  But although they may have picked a cool name, there is growing merit to the idea of providing Wifi for enterprise customers as a service, just like web hosting is today.

What it means to the enterprise customer base is that the management and cost of deploying an enterprise class wireless network is largely reduced or at least spread over time, and the risk of hardware obsolescence and the squeeze on controller bandwidth  becomes less of an issue.  

So why hasn't this method of deploying WiFi been done before?  It's largely down to the manufacturers ability to support this type of deployment architecture, that was until recently based on sending WiFi traffic back to a centralised cluster of controllers where is was processed, marked, dropped, prioritised or spat out to its destination.  Up until 12 months ago, this was the norm and claims of this architecture being a bottleneck  were met with marketing sneers.  But as is always the case with technology vendors, a lousy feature is only lousy until it has been implemented, and now the bottleneck problem magically exists.  To give them credit, it wasn't really until 802.11n started becoming more widely deployed, that controller bottlenecks were a real world problem.  However, the combination of 11n and the fact that most enterprises were recognising the cost benefits of architecting distributed wifi networks, has meant that distributing real intelligence to the APs while maintaining command and control in the centre, is probably the way forward - for now.

So if your friendly IT supplier knocks on the door and starts talking about WiFi as a service, what are they trying to sell you?  First of all, only 2 hardware vendors currently offer solutions that you could truly call "Cloud WiFi".  Motorola and Aerohive.  Both have access points with enough real intelligence to filter, firewall, inspect, process, switch frames and route packets and perform RF management functions without the constant need for a controller, and both have features that allow the slicing and dicing of controller functions for different end customers.  In both cases, the controller is out of the data path, and acts only in a configuration and policy management function, and this means it can be hosted anywhere.   In most cases, the end customer has firewalled access to his or her own policies, rules and statistics and shares the cost of the hardware and software with other like minded IT managers through the WiFi Service Provider.  They may even lease the AP hardware.

Personally I can see this working in principal, but there is one sticking point for me.  Just as Cpanel and Plesk allow the user of a shared hosting platform to perform common tasks without worrying about the underlying platform, so there needs to be a equivalent for managed, hosted WiFi.  In that way, the end customer can choose and change the colour and brand of the APs they want hanging on the ceiling, and not be concerned about learning a new, complex and vendor specific configuration back-end.  Believe me, the complexity of configuration is going to get worse before it gets better, and by then, we'll have a new architecture paradigm anyway.  Anyone for fat APs?

Shredding your credit card statements is a waste of time

If you woke up because you heard a noise on Tuesday night, you might not have known or cared what it was you heard. But wake up Wednesday morning and you will realise that the noise you heard was the sound of the Internet bubble of trust, bursting.


The recent news that Sony seemingly cares less about personal data, than its trustworthy reputation, should be a concern for everyone, not just its 70 million identity theft prone zombies customers.  While the confidence hit and damage to Sonys reputation is one thing, the general public are quite rightly asking the question; if a global giant such as this can be so casual about personal data, who else can't we trust?  I fear the answer is "quite a few" and that isn't going to give a helping hand to a global recovery.   As someone who is potentially impacted by this, I know that I will be even more cautious about who holds my financial information in particular, even going so far as to withhold my custom.


One hopes that Sony will publish its security inadequacies so that others may benefit from hindsight, but I'm not hopeful of that given their previous form when it comes to public communication.  Maybe the American public will lend a hand.  Although I've not yet seen any mention of a lawsuit against Sony, it surely can't be long.


Still, if there was a bright-side to this episode, I'll find it.  With all the marketing dollars that Sony is going to have to pump to rebuild confidence in its online retail service and its brand reputation, the boys and girls in the colouring-in department are surely spared of redundancy!