Off topic

I know this is totally off topic but has anyone heard of the "Flight of the Conchords"? It reminds me of Tenacious D because it is a duo of guitarists with a comedic twist. You can youtube some of their songs. Instead of studying for my finals, I have wasted my weekend watching these guys.

This is a gangster folk rap that will have you "lol"

Will it Blend?

Wow, so I finally bought a digital camera after researching endlessly. I'll do a review on it later. More interestingly, I've stumbled on this video that has people wondering if a certain object will blend or not. Usually, I'm rather disinterested in viral videos as these but it turns out the object attempting to be blended was a video camcorder. WOW. This guy is insane. The question now is, will it blend? Let's find out.

Nice.

Robots will rule the earth one day.

If you think that dancing robots are cute and cuddly, you and I are in the same boat. I want them! I wouldn't mind cutting a rug with one or two or more of these bad boys. Boy, those Japanese sure do know how to make some quality robots. Now, when robots will be of any practical use is another question.

Wii have some lazy people out there.

This guy is the ultimate lazy guy.

Money is the root of all electronics.

December is the month where everyone is spending all their hard earned money for gifts and stuff. It is the month where I go into debt. I'll help you get to where I am too. As we all know, black friday, is the day that has all those crazy deals to jumpstart spending. If you work like me, you've missed out on a lot of those deals. It's okay! Why is it okay? It's because there are great deals online that rival black fridays prices. One of my favorite web pages and the one that leaves my pockets empty is http://www.bensbargains.net/ They post the bottom prices including shipping and minus any rebates. There has been so many things that I have purchased on that web site. Another great website is http://www.newegg.com/ You have to be fast sometimes with these guys because some of their deals sell out. There was this one time where a high end lap top was being sold for under $400. By the time I had pulled out my credit card, it was sold out.














Before, I used to rely on E-Bay and Craigslist but more and more bad people congregate there. Its very upsetting to see a deal and then the person who posts the item is a 13 year old kid playing pranks. You know who you are!

I wonder what type of devilish plan he is conjuring up on E-bay now.

Magic PSP

Acidmods is an internet group that is famous for making PSP mods. Their most recent feat to date is disabling the PSP's power switch so no one can turn it on without your knowledge. What these folks at acidmods did was modified thier PSPs so that it turns on only when the user passes his hands by the psp. They don't tell of how they made the mod but soon enough, it will surface. When it surfaces, I'll let you know. As for the mod itself, this video shows it off.

Let the force be with you.

Its like a Hot Lava Lamp.

It's so mesmorizing. I can't stop watching this.

Nintendo Wii Wrist Strap Replacement

Nintendo is replacing the weak wrist strap that you get when you buy a nintendo wii console. The systems that were made before december 31, 2006 come with the first generation of weak wrist straps. It is a thin strap with a slide up plastic thing that slides up and down. After you slide up the plastic thing, you would then be led to a false sense of security. After a couple of minutes of vigorous wii'ing, that plastic thing would slide back down compromising the security it gave you. This problem have led to numerous wii-motes and tvs being broken. The new strap has a clip in the plastic thing that kept it in place. The strap itself is thicker. You can receive a free strap if you have the old strap. All you have to do is fill out some information including your email address, your physical address, and your nintendo wii serial number. You can go http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/strapreplace.jsp to fill out that form. Safe wii'ing.

Christmas Part 1

I remember a famous comedian by the name of Lewis Black saying that Thanksgiving is turning into Christmas part 1. The christmas music starts playing on the radios, the malls are crowding up, and the christmas shows start popping up on the tv. Well for this christmas part 1, many gamers will be satisfied. The game industry knows that the most games are sold during the christmas time and so there is a sudden surge of games coming out into the market. This is great because us game nerds can stay home and enjoy these games because in the end, we'll be broke from these games too. To save some money, I'll help you hack your PSP for free homebrew and games. I'm only listing how to do it, not where to find the games. First, have a PSP and check the firmware on it. You do that by going into your system menu. If you have any firmware 3.5 and under, you can hack your PSP! Now, depending on what version you have, you might have to upgrade in order to downgrade. Right now, I'll only explain how you would hack a version 3.5 psp. So, you need to download some files. You will need the Update files of firmwares 1.5 and 3.5. After successfully downloading those files, you will need to buy a copy of Lumines. Currently, it is the most sought after item among PSP owners. This game in a game store costs close to $30 dollars used! Supply and demand makes the business world go around....I guess. Okay, now we need to download another file which is the 3.5 firmware downgrader. Included in the downgrader pack are a set of instructions which will further help you finish downgrading your PSP. Once your PSP is at 1.5 firmware, you will need to upgrade it using custom firmware. I'll have to write about that later because I have a test coming up tomorrow. Who needs business class anyways? Isn't it all common sense?

It's a me, Mario!

Mario has made his debut on the nintendo Wii and its looking very very very good. It only took two years to come out for the platform. Mario is well known for its definitive gameplay on Nintendo consoles. This game will raise bars even higher than they have ever been. The game was released today so anyone who really wants it, can get a copy of the game at their local game store.

The game has already been reviewed on major gaming sites such as Gamespot. It has a high score of 9.5 which is currently the highest rank for the Nintendo Wii. I would've got the game if I weren't so broke. You can read up on the gameplay and etc here: http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/supermario128/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review

Here's a little taste of what this game has to offer.

Google's Android OS

Google is at it again. They have come into the mobile phone OS arena. They have announced their mobile OS which is based on Linux. It has a web browser, video player, IM applications, and a couple more features.

Google's Android OS was started about three years ago by Andy Rubin. Andy Rubin had launched Danger, which is a company that makes the Sidekicks or Hiptops. His company, Android, was bought by Google in August 2005.

The advantage of this mobile OS is that its open source and free. Linux is also open sourced and free. This means that there will be a lot of free applications for everyone to use. This OS has signed up more than 30 different companies and formed the Open Handset Alliance. These companies range from carriers, software gurus, commercial partners and equiptment manufacturers. Other major companies in the mobile OS business like Microsoft and Symbian will be majorly affected. Their standpoint right now is to wait and see how it will be accepted by the communities. If Android OS is widely accepted, Microsoft and Symbian will probably jump on the band wagon. It should launch sometime mid 2008. We'll just have to wait and see. That crazy Google, what will they do next?

Heres a good informational video for Andriod

Guitar Hero 3!

There has been great hype surrounding Guitar Hero 3. This hype has made me go out and buy a copy. Since I own a Nintendo Wii, I bought the Nintendo Wii version. It was bundled with a guitar for a grand spanking total of 89.99 plus tax. I drove home as fast as I could and inserted the game into the Wii. The guitar itself had to be assembled which took less than 5 minutes. I inserted the batteries and put the wiimote into the guitar. The guitar has a wiimote shaped hole to accomadate the wiimote for rumble effects and extra sound effects. I blasted through a couple of tracks and got a decent score. The track list itself is amazing with 71 songs to guitar your way to fame. Everyone said that I looked ridiculous and that I looked like I was air-guitaring. Even though they said I looked hillarious, they still wanted to play. Posers. The game itself is very fun and even better to play with a group. I would suggest you buy guitar hero 3 because there arent many quality games for the Wii yet.

I'll admit, it was embarassing but at least I didn't look like this guy.

Wii Frenzy?

People have been trying to sell the Nintendo Wii on sites like craigslist to unwary people. People claim that the Nintendo Wii is hard to buy at stores. That is definitly not the case. I went out randomly and bought a Wii without any problems. The Wii is in stock and is easy to buy in many stores. The people on craigslist are offering Nintendo Wiis with 5 games and a controller. Sounds pretty good, right? Not at all. When you buy a new Nintendo Wii, those come bundled in at no extra cost. The thing that burns me up is that these people are selling their Wii for more than what it actually costs. I guess these guys think we are all stupid.

Okay, maybe some of us are stupid.

Buying Electronics Over Ebay?

Ebay is the devil.

I say this purely from my standpoint. Ebay is so addicting. I will spend hours of my life browsing ebay items. I will then buy an item which I have never inspected physically and wait for it to be mailed out to me. I would highly advise you don't make this mistake. I have had many problems with electronics being sent out to me D.O.A. To save yourself time and the trouble, don't do it. DON'T DO IT!

I've bought many cell phone parts off ebay and have had to wait 3 months for them to be shipped out to me. I sometimes get wrong items for no apparent reason. If you have the patience to save a couple of dollars, then be my guest.

The truth be told

I/C Chip Inside!

When you buy a charger for your cell phone make sure it has an "I/C Chip" inside.

An I/C Chip is a chip that prevents any overcharging. The I/C chip uses a simple internal sensor to detect the battery's power capacity. Once cell phone battery is fully charged, the charger automatically switches to stand-by mode.

If you ever buy another charger, make sure it has an I/C chip inside. Got I/C? This guy does.

Phone not charging?

Hello, I'm here to help you out with your phone not holding a charge. There can be three problems with your phone. Those three problems can be any one from your charger might not be working properly, your battery might be overcharged, or your phone could have a faulty charging port.

The cheapest problem to diagnose is your charger. See if you can get another charger and see if your phone will charge with that charger. If it does, that means you just need to buy a new charger. Chargers can die relatively easy and quickly. A new charger would only set you back any where from 10-20 dollars.

If a new charger isnt the problem, see if your battery is distended. You can tell by removing the battery and seeing if the battery bulges in the middle. This bulge is from overcharging. Overcharging is when you leave your phone charged in overnight and leaving it on even when your phone is already fully charged. Most of the newer phones don't run into this problem but I see this problem a lot too. Common symptoms of your battery being overcharged is you only get 5 - 10 minutes of talk time on your phone. Your battery might say that its completely full but when you use your phone, the battery dies out almost instantly. In this case, you need to buy a new battery. A new battery will set you back anywhere from 20 - 30 dollars.

If neither of those solutions helped, you need to buy a new phone. This is because you have a faulty charging port. Since the charging port is located on the main board, repairing is often expensive. Most of the times, repairing would be just as expensive as buying a new phone.

I hope you keep this in mind the next time you ever run into this problem. This might save you the trouble to diagnose this problem or have someone mis-diagnose this problem.

Guilty Gear for Wii

The fighting game Guilty Gear XX Accent Core will be released by 505 Games for the Wii in February 2008 according to Digital Spy. Guilty Gear is a 2D fighting game like Street Fighter 2 that has over the edge animation with great graphics.
The game will utilize the wiimote control for attack moves while the nunchuk will be used to move the fighters around.
This might be fun, but personally I’d like to see someone release a fighting game like Mortal Kombat where you strap multiple wiimotes around both hands and ankles so you can control punches and kicks with your hands and feet.
Yes, I realize that this has “bad idea” written all over it, but it’s saturday and a man can dream of a world where he is placed in the virtual shoes of Subzero or Scorpion, can’t he? Yeah, I guess it is a really bad idea. Just like getting drunk and falling asleep while your friends are still around.

This guy is pwned!

PSP is a hero.

The following is the sad story of a businessman from Louisville kidnapped, beaten, and tortured by two others in a motel room in West Knox County for nine days. After the local police and FBI agents hadsolved the case, it became known that the businessman Jose Ignacio Ortega Garcia was another victim of the "Mexican mafia". The mexican mafia is a terroristic group who have been perpetrating these aweful crimes against fellow Hispanic citizens in America. Ortega Garcia reportedly suffered both mental and physical torture from Jose Sanchez and Juan Gonzales as the assailants forced him to write numerous checks totaling approximately US$ 27,000. The following is part of the report filed by FBI Agent Buddy Early:
On June 21, Gonzales gave Sanchez a handheld video game that would prove to be Garcia's savior...
Sanchez played the video game virtually all day that day and much of the night. Garcia used the distraction as an opportunity to loosen his bindings. When the exhausted gamer fell asleep, Garcia bolted, running from the room to the hotel office, screaming, "They are trying to kill me..."
Suspect Sanchez's thumb print was recovered from a PlayStation Portable hand-held video game box recovered from victim Garcia's car...The suspects were nabbed in Houston on a federal complaint filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Stone.





I knew sooner or later, the PSP would save peoples lives.

The Sky-puter! LOL.

The Sky Puter is essentially a computer without a case, while all components are suspended from the ceiling with a combination of coat hangers, cat5, and cat3 cable. Your airflow doesn't really get any better than this. To me it looks like a still frame of a computer exploding.

Wiimote hacking?

It seems as though the remote controller for the Nintendo Wii has been already hacked and used for purposes other than the Wii. It seems that the wiimote is a bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby computers and other bluetooth compatible hardware. The computers find s the wiimote and name it a non standard human interface device. Knowing this the hackers out there have made programs so that the computer could interpret the signals being sent from the wiimote and translates those signals to mouse movement. I can't wait to see whats in store for the wii and its accessories.

Nintendo Wii

Wii would like to play. I have spontaneously went out and bought the Nintendo Wii. I went home and tore through the packaging to get to the good stuff. The Nintendo Wii had about 5 lbs of packing material and plastic bags that took 10 minutes to remove. A nice touch from the guys at Wii included them throwing in 2 AA batteries for the Wii-mote(Wii controller).

The Wii came with 1 Wii-mote, 1 nunchuck, 1 console + hookup wires, 1 sensor bar, and one game called Wii Sports.

I must have stayed up all night yesterday playing this. Quite a fun time killer indeed. I had to admit that I didn't want to buy the Wii at first. I thought it would not compare to the other current generation gaming consoles. Why did I buy the Wii then? Its a lot cheaper than the other consoles out there. Wii costs 250+tax while the PS3 costs 599+tax. With a price difference of over 200 dollars, I'll gladly stick with the Wii anyday. Wouldn't you?

Cell Phone Care

It's amazing how many people come into my store with broken phones in need of desperate repair. I will take the time to address proper cell phone care and maybe suggest cell phone accessories to prolong the life of your cell phone. I find that there are three major damages that occur. The number one damage to phones is dropping it in water.

Thats a NO NO! I've had countless numbers of customers dropping their cell phones in the toilet, the sink and etc. Sometimes there is a slight chance that the cell phone could dry out and function properly for a while. Even if the cell phone dries out, there is a high chance that it will stop working after a few weeks. The reason for this is because on the inside, mold will form and cause corrosion to the main circuit board inside. If your phone falls into water, take it out as soon as possible, then take out the battery and sim card, and then you let it dry. If you so happen to have a can of uncooked rice, put your phone in there. The reason why is that rice will help dry your phone faster. Wait till your phone dries and resist the temptation of turning it back on after a couple of hours. Let it dry overnight just to be safe. If youre extra handy, dissassemble your phone and brush the inside with a little amount of rubbing alcohol. That will disinfect it and help from mold and bacteria from forming on your warm circuit board. Get insurance if you know youre horrible with keeping stuff in working condition.

So heres rule one: If possible, do not use the phone while going to the bathroom. Call them back after you use the bathroom. It's also etiquette.

Another high reason of cell phone damage is to the battery. This is called overcharging. Sometimes when you buy a cell phone, the charger that comes with it might not have an IC Chip inside of it. The IC Chip regulates the amount of power that a phone receives. When it notices that your cell phone is completely charged, it stops sending power to your phone. You're phone also has this feature but its always better to be safe than to be sorry. The symptoms of over charged batteries include the physical battery being distended or bulged, your phone saying its full but when you make a call it dies out almost instantly, and if your battery just doesnt work anymore. Batteries aren't made to last forever. You would usually have to buy a new battery in a year or two anyways. Its just how they are made. The new Lithium Ion batteries also need to be trained. The first time you charge your phone, they say to charge it 10+ hours. To get the maximum battery life, you must then use your phone until its really low and beeping at you. Plug in the charger and charge it till its fully charged. If you fail to train your battery, you would not be able to get the maximum battery life.

Rule two: Try not to keep your phone plugged in the wall overnight or for more than 5-6 hours. Keep it plugged in until it says on the phone that its fully charged. Stick it on the charger when you get to the absolute bottom and charge it till its completely full.

The last category of problems is very diverse. It's physical damage. Physical damage is horrible to your phone. Treat it with care. Think of your phone as an investment and not a throw toy. Decent cell phones are quite pricey as well. A cheap cell phone here and a cheap cell phone there really adds up. Might as well get a good one and take care of it. I've seen damages from LCD screens cracked, flip phones snapped in two, and phones that look like its on the last strings of its life. Take care of your phone properly. Buy a protective case or a carrying pouch to keep your phone safe. This will help a little bit but ultimately it depends on the user. Get insurance if you know youre horrible with keeping stuff in working condition.

Rule Three: Treat your cell phone with care if you want to use it for a long time. Buy protective cases for it or a carrying pouch to prolong its life.

Allrighty then?

PSP Faceplate Changing

Today we go over how to change the faceplate of a PSP. A faceplate is the front of your object that covers the internal parts and screen. There are a great number of aftermarket faceplates for Game Consoles as well as Cell Phones.

You can see that a faceplate can visually revive a system like this green faceplate for the PSP.

Your PSP will show signs of wear and tear as the time goes on. My original faceplate was so badly scratched up that I couldn't see the top half of the screen. Eventually I went online and bought myself some custom PSP faceplates. It was very arduous considering I didn't know what I was doing. I will try to help the masses of changing a PSP faceplate today.

Things you'll need:

1 x #001 Phillips Head Screwdriver and clean hands.

First you take the battery cover off and take the battery out. After doing so, you take the bottom sticker strip of the PSP off. There are two hidden screws undearneath. In the picture, the label part is lifted up to show which one you should remove.

Unscrew all the rest of the screws and put them in a safe place. You'll definitly need them. Now time to flip the PSP over and take the analog stick off. You can use your thumbnail to just lift the analog stick controller off.

Now you flip the faceplate part over and unscrew several screws. You need to take the buttons off and now place them in the new faceplate. Make sure you remember to take the bottom button strip off as well. The analog stick has two screws you need to unscrew. Unscrew that and install it onto the new faceplate. Put all the buttons that you've taken out and put them into the new faceplate as well.

You should put the faceplate back onto the PSP and then screw it back into place. Voila!! Looks like a brand new PSP.

Here's a good tutorial on it from YouTube.

Why I'm So Crazy About the PSP

Okay, i'm sure that all of you are wondering why i'm so gung-ho about the PSP. The PSP is a portable gaming machine and iPod Video in one. They both can play music, videos, view pictures. That's all gravy baby but the real reason why i'm so infatuated with the PSP is because it can be hacked to play homebrew.

Homebrew are applications that people have made and is open sourced. It's like Linux. People have made countless homebrew applications ranging from being a universal remote control to playing emulators and roms. You can back up your games that you legally own and play it straight from the memory card(which cuts load time by a lot). Sony is constantly trying to advert hackers and software pirates away from stealing and running games off the memory card. Sony releases a new software upgrade from time to time which deters hackers but the hackers always end up finding a way. I believe that this is one of the reasons the PSP Slim has been made. As of yet, the PSP Slim remains hack-free....but i suspect not for long.

EDIT: Slim has been hacked !!

PSP SLIM!

The PSP SLIM is out.

I'm a little slow on the ball but nonetheless, the PSP Slim is out. What this PSP does is add more functionability to that of a normal non-modded PSP. The PSP Slim adds a TV out, chargability via USB, redesigned button layout, more precise controls(for fighting games), loads UMDs faster, a brighter screen, and a lighter weight. Sony has answered the challenge that the Nintendo DS Lite offered. You will not be able to run homebrew on the PSP Slim yet but I'm sure the hackers worldwide are hard at work trying.

EDIT! ALREADY HACKED!@

Back To Basics

I will be talking about how to solder. We need to know how to solder in order to do little modifications/repairs on electrical appliances. Warning: Never attempt to repair a microwave or such appliances! I had a customer who tried to fix his own microwave and now he is 6 feet underground.

Mostly I will be discussing how to modify the PSP. The Sony PSP is a versitile gaming machine. It is a portable gaming machine that can view pictures, play music, play videos, has an intergrated web browser, and of course, play games. Since it is portable, the controls maybe too close for normal to bigger adult hands. You can add an additional D-Pad (directional Pad) or an additional analog stick if thats the case.

But first, the basics of soldering:

You need: A Low Watt Soldering Iron (15 - 25 Watt Preferably), thin solder, tweezers or small pliers, patience and a steady hand.

Soldering is the process in which two metals are joined together by means of a third metal or alloy having a relatively low melting point. (defined by wikipedia) I've used soldering for my car speakers, my game controllers, fixing phones, modding the PSP, my car and motorcycle, and for plain old fun.

Practice on spare wires from unused and UNPLUGGED wires from appliances for example unused speaker wire or from any game controller that doesn't work anymore. Plug your iron in and wait till it gets hot. BECAREFUL! You might burn your fingers while using your iron. The metal part in the wires need to be exposed so strip the tips of the plastic tubes off. Since were using two seperate wires we'll name the first wire, wire1 and the second wire, wire2. Prepare the wires by melting a little bit of solder on to the part where wire1 and wire2 will meet. In my experience, this makes things a lot easier. After preping the wires, cross wire1 and wire2 where you want to connect them. You can add more solder if you want or since they are already prepped you can just solder them by touching your iron to the point. Once the solder melts, blow on the almost connected wires to harden the solder. Once harden you should have the once two seperate wires into one connected wire. As Sacha Baron Cohen from "Borat" once said, "High Five".

Once you get used to this we'll actually start to mod a little bit.

Whats going on? iPhone Cheaper!?

The price on the iPhone has dropped 200 dollars! Those of you that have bought the 8 GB iPhone have been duped! Buyers who paid the full price ($599) and who are not eligible for price protection will receive $100 in credit. Only good at the Apple iPod Store. This might be good if you wanted to buy some songs through iTunes but who would buy $100 dollars worth of songs? I feel sorry for iPhone owners and thus am offering my condolences and a good shoulder to cry on.

The iPhone is the current hottest topic of cell phone enthusiasts everywhere. (My favorite is still the Nokia N95) It has many useful features that help the modern day internet junkie stay connected and entertained. The initial price sticker was a shocker but many, including our own mayor John Street, have shelled out the money for this impressive gadget. This was the most anticipated phone since the V3 RAZR. Is this phone worth it? In my opinion, gadget wise yes, pocket-wise no.