It took a while to find a reliable ‘set it and leave it’ configuration for my Pi-powered AirPlay network. Here’s the config I settled on, with thanks to Ray Wenderlich and Pi My Life Up.

Update: I’m no longer using this config because Shairport doesn’t support AirPlay 2 for multi-room synchronisation. A set of second-hand AirPort Expresses have taken up the role with no problems to report.

Write disk image to SD card (or just use Etcher)

1. Identify the address of your SD card.
   df -h
2. Unmount the card with, replacing ‘disk1s1’ with your SD card address.
   sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s1
3. Write the image to the card, replacing the image location and disk address.
   sudo dd bs=5m if=~/Downloads/wheezy-raspbian.img of=/dev/disk1s1
4. Pop the card into the RPi and boot up.

Update everything

1. sudo apt-get update
2. sudo apt-get upgrade
3. sudo dpkg --configure -a

Expand file system and change

No the iPhone still doesn’t have an IR ‘blaster’ you can use to control your TV. You can use your iPhone’s FaceTime (front facing) camera to troubleshoot problems with your remote control though. If you don’t think your remote is firing correctly then you can try this simple trick to find out…

Human eyes can’t see the infrared light produced by remote controls. However, your iPhone can. As long as you have an iPhone 4 or newer, your front-facing ‘FaceTime’ camera can see IR light, if you’re still rocking an 3GS or older then you can use your rear facing camera. If you have another smartphone, give it a try. I can’t guarantee that it’ll work with individual models, but it’s worth a shot.

Google has been making quite a bit of fuss over its precious Google Glass – trying to integrate it in to all of their services (presumably Reader wasn’t compatible) before anyone has even got it. They have their Explorer Program, which was supposed to get Glass into the hands of ordinary people doing extreme sports, etc.

Unfortunately, it appears that this wasn’t entirely successful. Many of the people who have started to receive the Explorer Project invites seem to be celebrities and other Twitter uses with high numbers of followers. Now clearly this helps Google with the marketing of Glass for when it is (presumably) publicly released. Celebs flashing their new gadgets, glad to be a part of another exclusive club.

But is this right? Should the invites be handed out on a basis of how many people will recognize you? And then there’s the other problem. Will it work? Will the celebs make...