Installing homebrew channel

The first step will be to have access to the homebrew channel on your Wii. This can be accomplished by several ways. I used the Twilight hack described here http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Twilight_Hack however, this has been fixed in later updates of the Wii firmware. However the Indiana Pwns hack explained here http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Indiana_Pwns currently works with the latest 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2 system menus.

You can also use the BannerBomb hack which is explained in this article http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Bannerbomb

I am however not going to explain in detail the software hacking of the Wii, as this was something I did when I first got the Wii, by going out and buying The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, so I could load the hacked save game and start installing home brew. This is all explained in the links I posted and should be enough to get you started.

Installing the latest IOS package cIOSCORP

In order for the system to be able to load the latest games without having to update the system itself, we need the latest IOS packages. These packages can be installed in numerous amounts of ways, but I found it easiest to use a package installer called cIOSCORP. This installed all the latest IOS packages, patched with whatever it needed to have patched, and as many as needed to run any game available on the market. More info and download of the package can be found here http://cioscorp.com/

Simply explained is that you download the package, place it under apps/ on your SD card and start the install through the homebrew channel. Some basics about how you do this here http://sites.google.com/site/completesg/how-to-use/homebrew-channel

Making a WBFS USB stick with wbfsmanager

In order to play games from an USB stick, the file system on the USB stick have to be altered to use the WBFS system the Wii uses to read the game DVD’s etc. This can be accomplished by using a simple application called WBFS Manager, and can be downloaded here http://wbfsmanager.codeplex.com/ Simply follow this guide http://adewii.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/howto-wbfs-manager-for-windows-basics/ and you will have the USB stick converted to WBFS in no time. This guide also explains how to transfer the ISO files onto your USB stick.

Scrubbing Wii game isos and adding to usb stick

It is also possible to do a “scrub” of the ISO images for games you backup. This makes them smaller, which is what we want when we are storing games on an USB stick. You can download the Wii scrubber here http://wiiscrubber.com/ Once the game you have scrubbed is done, transfer it to the WBFS USB stick as shown in the link above.

Installing an USB loader

I’m currently on a slight experimental stage with this, but right now I’m using an USB loader called WiiFlow which is working quite well. Download it here http://wiiflow.wiitdb.com/ Simply place the package inside the apps/ folder on your SD card to run it from the homebrew channel. If everything is working as it should, you will be asked to insert the USB stick and the games placed on the stick will show up!

I know there is another launcher available, enabling you to launch games directly from the channel menu explained here http://sites.google.com/site/completesg/backup-launchers/usb/loadstructor which I’m going to try out, but I just managed to boot up Super Mario Galaxy, and my girlfriend has now claimed the Wii for the evening ;)

Disclaimer:

I take no responsibility for the use of pirated games with this walk through. This guide is strictly for information use only (and as my personal reference). I also take no responsibility for any damage to your Wii caused by this guide, neither do I take responsibility for any harm made to other hardware.

Also, there are probably several errors in this guide. If you wish to correct my post, please leave a comment and I will do the necessary updates.

Yes, new gadget! I got myself a Western Digital My Book World edition (White Edition), and man I love this little box of fun!

It’s running GNU/Linux stripped down edition (which by the way is GPL and can be downloaded here), it’s got a 1TB Western Digital hard drive, 1 Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mb  and a USB 2.0 connection.

I have been working on and off for some time now to set up a new server with some old spare parts I got from work, but as always with old hardware it’s slow, not a 100% compatible with GNU/Linux and the cabinet is too big and bulky to place anywhere, also, it’s usually pretty noisy, either with the CPU fan acting as a small air-plane or the BIOS fan being slightly off, which makes the whole cabinet vibrate (personal experience ™).

Here’s what made me decide on buying one:

Torrent client - Check! – The box runs Transmission perfectly and download speeds are very good. There are also hacks enabling RSS feed downloading, which makes it perfect for getting TV-Shows as soon as they are available.

Media server system – Check! – This box has a system called Twonkyvision running, which enables it to be discovered on our Popcorn hour A-110 with no problems! All our media is displayed directly and streaming works flawless (all tough I have not tried HD-Content yet, but I kind of doubt it would be any problem). This system also support iTunes, which makes it possible to stream all our music to our machines directly.

Access to GNU/Linux shell - Check! – This box doesn’t only allow you to access the shell, it seems they even encourage it. In the advanced settings on the web interface, you’re allowed to enable SSH access, and you are given the root password. You are also able to compile applications with gcc (all tough pre-installed gcc was removed in the latest firmware, it’s still available to install).

Basically, this device is just as good as any old server. I have also later found out that I can do the following with this box:

CUPS – Enables the NAS to serve as a printer server for the local network.

Net-SNMP - Makes it possible to poll the box for any info you would like to graph into ex. MRTG or RRDTool. This makes monitoring the device load, memory, temperature, disk size etc. incredibly easy.

vsftpd – FTP server support for transferring files super fast to and from the device.

rsync – Ability to run as a rsync server, which enables it to receive backups and incremental backups from other machines and keep everything up to date.

Now, when I first got it, I had a bit of a problem. At home in our current appartement, we don’t have any Internet connection, not directly into our apartment anway, but we share a wireless connection with our neighbours. This works all well when we have computers that have WLAN, but when I get a device that requires cable, It gets a bit difficult.

So I decided to set the box up like this:

Western digital My book connects to a 10/100Mbit switch I have. This switch is then connected to my computer by regular Cat5 cable. In my computer I set up NAT routing the traffic from eth0 (the wired network) to wlan0 (the wireless network). This makes it possible for the My book to download torrents, update firmware etc. etc. If anyone would be interested in the setup needed, I’d be glad to share it.

I might be posting more about this device later, as I’m no doubt going to be hacking and tweaking away at it until I’m a 100% satisfied.

All in all, this is a fantastic device, and so far I’ve had no problems with it. Sure, some might show up, but that’s usually due to me being a bit too curious on how things work ;)

So this post is dedicated to all those old phones that I spent hours playing with and carrying around.

Motorola M3288

This one was the first cell phone I ever had. It was at the top of its game in 1999, and had a single unique ring-tone, four lines of text and had the ability to store 10 dialed, 5 received and 5 missed calls!  It was also my first phone number, which I had with me for many years. More about this later.

Conclusion: 2/10

As for being my first phone, I think I could have done way better, but it was my mother that bought it, and I couldn’t really complain. The SMS writing was horrible, ringtone was like nails on a blackboard and voice quality was like listening through tinfoil being wrapped.

Nokia 3210

Now here’s a phone that really introduced me to tinkering with phones. It had the ability to change cover (or better known as Xpress-On ™ by Nokia), downloadable ringtones and the ability to compse them yourself, and T9 dictionary. It also had some good games like snake and memory.

Conclusion: 6/10

This phone was with me everywhere, and was as solid as a rock. I bought an awesome cover for it, I used the early days free SMS servers to send free sms to my friends, and I hacked away on every little Setting I could find.

All in all, one of the better phones I’ve had, until I lost it from my pocket while riding a moped, and losing it in the middle of the road, having it smashed into a million pieces :(

Nokia 3330

After the previous phone being smashed to pieces, I figured it was time to move on to the next big thing. This being the Nokia 3330. I had read allot about this phone, and prepared myself a bit, as I had heard this phone was the revolution in cell phone technology. It had Internets! As in, it supported WAP and had the ability to run the J2ME Java applications, which meant more hacking, more fun.

Conclusion: 6/10

I’m not giving this any higher rating then the previous phone. This being because when I first got it, I got disappointed in how slow and crap it was. The Java applications took forever to load, and the WAP surfing was a big downer (all tough the WAP being slow wasn’t really the phones fault, more the phone lines carrying the data). It still gets a good rating for being fun to use when I was bored and wanted to check IT-News, and chat on online.no with other wap’ers.

Nokia 3650

Being the geek that I am, I of course needed an upgrade pretty soon. And that upgrade was the Nokia 3650. This phone was out of this world at the time when it finally arrived (I had been waiting for over a year for it to be released). It had colour screen, wallpaper support, vibration and polyphonic ringtone support, whopping 4MB of internal memory AND support for MMC cards. It also sported a pretty ok camera.

Conclusion: 7/10

Here I’m up for the big leagues when it comes to cell phone. We’re talking smartphone, business phone. All the fancy names you know for phones today. I had been waiting for this cell phone to be released for so long, and had saved up the money for it (about 5000,- NOK), just so I could be the first to get it.

And boy did I hack around allot with this one. I download apps from all places and installed on it, set up new wallpapers and even used it to surf the web quite a bit. In the end I found it way to slow, all tough that might just have been because I loaded it up with every app I could find..

Nokia 6270

After tiring out the old one I figured it was time for a more advanced phone. At first glance, this phone seemed like something I really wanted. It had a cool look, nice finish (brushed metal), and an overall nice solid quality type feel to it. It had stereo speakers and seemed like a pretty decent phone all in all.

Conclusion: 3/10

Yes, it was total rubbish! I was hoping for a phone I could hack away at and enjoy myself with. Turns out this brick of boredom only ran Symbian series 40, which is about as hackable as a dishwasher. Actually, a dishwasher is more hackable then this piece of junk.

I ended up selling it less then a month after I got it, due to the fact that the phone was really no fun at all. It was a phone, and that’s it. I’m more demanding then that.

Nokia N71

Here’s another one that was a phone I really wanted, and waited for a long time to get. It was the first N-Series clamshell phone made my Nokia.

It had of course the now essential parts like colour display, T9, camera etc. etc, but at the time it had everything you could have in a phone, making it a kind of everyday user/business user phone.

Conclusion: 7/10

There is a very good reason this phone doesn’t get a higher score, and this being that it was very poorly built. The hinge betwen the screen and keyboard got horribly loose after just a couple of months use, and the display got huge scratches because of the keyboard. It was really not built for the kind of use it received by any average user.

The features on the phone itself was of course amazing. It had a very quick Interface, with the ability to install apps for a newer and more robust SymbianOS. I even started a hosting server just for apps for this phone, that’s how much fun I had playing around with it. In the end it started failing me, and it was when it started locking up, crashing, not ringing when it was supposed to and not setting the alarm off that made me abandon it.

Samsung X660

Don’t ask…  The reason I suddenly ended up with this phone was basically because I was very short on money at the time, and I really needed a cellphone, so I got my moms old one. This phone was very simple and had the basics you needed for sending SMS, calling, receiving calls and having the alarm go off.

Conclusion: 3/10

This phone actually gets a bit better rating then my first phone. The reason being that the phone wasn’t half bad, really. It was quick as hell, did what it was supposed to and sturdy to the point of it being able to survive a throw across the room and into a wall. I of course hacked and tweaked this phone as well, but it was quite limited, and so was my tweaking.

I still use this phone today as a backup phone, in case my current one would fail on me. And I really wouldn’t have any problem going back to it if I had to, all tough only for a few days of course.

HTC Touch Diamond

Aaand we’re back in the big leagues. I got myself a job, and seeing as several of the other people at work had their own HTC’s, which I was really envious about, I wanted one for myself as well. This one was the big hype when it came out, and seemed (yet again) to contain every feature you would ever need in a phone.

There was possibilities you could never have dreamed about. Like being able to use a fully functional xHTML browser, being able to connect to wifi, having mail received directly to the phone, and an amazingly slick look.

Conclusion: 7/10

Why only a 7 for a gadget of this magnitude you say? Well to be honest, I had really high hopes at first. It seemed like a cool phone, packed with features, and the interface was really good, but to be honest, the Windows Mobile system has been, and always will be a piece of junk. It’s slow, bloated, horribly built in terms of being finger friendly, and fails constantly.

I have lost count on how many times I had to restart the phone, and wait for 15 minutes for it to boot, because there was either an application that crashed, or the phone just stopped functioning. In the end, this phone was hacked to the point where I could not tweak it anymore, and it still crashed on me.

Apple iPhone 3G 8GB

And now, for my current phone. Yes, I joined the herd and became an Apple fan boy. I was very reluctant at first, and waited for a long time to get one. Mostly because I was very against the monthly fees the operator charged, but I felt safe enough economically , so I had a go. Features for this phone includes allot of the same stuff that other phones, but with the added extra to user (and finger) friendliness.

Conclusion: 10/10

Yes, that’s right. I finally found the phone for me! Okay, I might be over my head on this, but it’s true right now anyway. Right now this phone has every single feature I would ever need, and then some. I can install applications on it, it’s fast, it looks slick as hell and is a combination of the average user and a geeks dream.

I must admit, I held back jail-breaking it for quite some time, but finally my sweaty geek hands could not stay away any longer, so I hacked it. There’s just something special about being a geek, and being able to sit in a GNU/Linux like console on your phone, connecting to other servers with SSH and even downloading torrents while walking through town.

This about sums up my collection of phones over the years. Some have been fun, some not so fun. In the end, I found a phone that I’m happy with, but that will probably change when the next big thing arrives

It’s expensive being a gadget geek :)

Updated 15.07.2009: After looking over the list, I remembered the Nokia 6270 that I had for a few weeks. Turns out I had completely forgotten about it. Now it’s in the list where it belongs :)

Finally on Sunday I recieved a mail from Blizzard with a request for a password reset. It didn’t explain why I recieved a mail about this, but I thought not much of it and reset my password to a new one.
With this I managed to log into my account. Well, when I then logged in my first character, Cloudhoof, I was in for a suprise. He was located in Hellfire Peninsula (while as I left him in Shattrath), with his bags full of major healing and mana potions, 3000 gold and his bags full of various rare BoE lvl 70 items. You could say I was pretty damn shocked, and my first thought was of course that my account had been hacked over the weekend, and that Blizzard somehow had realized this and managed to get me my account back.

Well, by having all this stuff on my character, of course I couldn’t help but feeling that this was what the hackers had to pay for hacking my account, so I claimed the items and gold as my own.
After clearing out bags, picking up all the stuff the hacker had sold of my character, that Blizzard had sent me, sending some stuff to various alts and putting some of the rare items up for auction, I logged off.

Then the next day, on Monday, I recieved the following mail:

To: Me
From: WoWAccountReviewEU@blizzard.com
Subject: Permanent Account Suspension

Greetings,

We are writing to inform you that we have, unfortunately, had to cancel your World of Warcraft account:

Account Name: EQU
Type of Violation: Involvement in online trading activities
Investigation Concluded: 25/08/2008
Consequences for Account: Account Cancellation

It is with regret that we take this type of action, however, it is in the best interest of the World of Warcraft community as a whole, and for the integrity of the game, that your access to the World of Warcraft servers be cancelled.

Online trading refers to the exchange of in-game content for real world money, and includes, but is not limited to, the sale or purchase of gold, the sale or purchase of experience in the form of powerlevelling, and the sale or purchase of honor points, reputation or items.

Account access is the responsibility of the account owner and account sharing is against our Terms of Use (http://www.wow-europe.com/en/legal/termsofuse.html). Therefore, should you believe someone other than yourself (the account owner) has committed this violation of the Terms of Use with your account, these sanctions would still apply, as our action is taken against the account, not the individual.

If you wish to review our current Rules and Polices, they can be found at:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/policy/

Regards,

Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment Europe

Man was I put out by that one…. Turns out they accused me of participating in gold trading activities, because I had the items and gold left from the hacker on my account! I was not sure what to do, as I really felt this was not my fault, but they clearly state that even thought there is someone else that has used your account, we can still hold you accountable for what happens with it.
Basically, a hacker can access your account by getting your password, do some goldfarming, you can get the account back and get screwed over by Blizzard for what the hacker did to your account.

I sent a long and detailed mail to the Blizzard accounting departement explaining everything, but has yet to recieve an answer. And seeing as they use about 3 days to give a reply, I’m not really expecting it any time soon.

So either this is a sign that I should not have started playing in the first place, or I’m just really unlucky.

I will probably try to get my account back, but seeing as it is a permanent suspension, I kind of doubt I’ll have much luck, unless I call them and explain everything.

Well here’s a small snippet of code that enables you to do just that. Do the following:

1. Go to Organize bookmarks on your Bookmarks drop down.
2. Create a new bookmark, for example on your bookmarks tool bar folder.
3. Add the following code to the URL/Address, and call the bookmark “Reveal it!”

javascript:(function(){var s,F,j,f,i; s = %22%22; F = document.forms; for(j=0; j<F.length; ++j) { f = F[j]; for (i=0; i<f.length; ++i) { if (f[i].type.toLowerCase() == %22password%22) s += f[i].value + %22\n%22; } } if (s) alert(%22Password is:\n\n%22 + s); else alert(%22No passwords%22);})();

Next time you have a text box with ***** in it on your screen. Click the “Reveal it!” bookmark and presto! the password will be displayed on your screen.

WARNING: This piece of code can also be used against you, so use it with caution. Remember to always lock your computer when you’re not in front of it.