Ripping Wii games on a Mac

For educational purposes only!
Google: "mac ripping wii iso"
http://wiinewz.com/forums/faqs-guides-tutorials/69742-rip-wii-games-mac.html
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/482844

Doing reserach into iMovie 08 and 09

I've been looking into editing for newer format camcorders. I found a good blog about iMovie '08 that might help to clarify things for me.

Netflix

It's unexpectedly awesome in the first two days of trying it out. After spending over $10 for movie rentals at Blockbuster, I realized that we might be able to do better using Netflix.

I chose the cheapest unlimited account for around $9 a month. The real plus is that we can view movies almost instantly using our TiVo. I decided not to add the Blu-Ray feature even though we can watch Blu-Ray discs on my new Playstation 3.

We rented Hancock on Blu-Ray and even though it looked great, it wasn't a huge difference than watching a DVD up-scaled for HD. At least not for another buck a month. Talk about a cheapskate!

Signing up for the service only took a couple of minutes and it was only another minute or so to link our TiVo to the service.

I went on the computer and created a couple of queues for DVD's and for instant viewing. We're still waiting on our first movie, but we watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as our first on-demand flick. The quality was very good. I'll be curious to see how good action flicks look.

I've installed one Netflix app on my iPhone and activated the feature in another and between the two I can search, add movies to our queue, reorder the queue and other functions... all from the iPhone. Kickass.

I can already tell this is going to have a huge effect on our movie watching habits.

UDF to burn troublesome DVD's

Microvision SHOW WX Pico Projector

I don't have a pressing need for one of these, but damn! What a cool concept. I don't even have a laptop for work right now, but how cool would it be to hook up my iPod or iPhone to this thing to give on-the-spot presentations or training sessions?

Installing a Custom Firmware on my PSP

For educational purposes only!
I'm still not sure what the procedure would be for me.

First off, I have an older PSP and I just installed the newest firmware 5.02 from Sony.

• http://www.us.playstation.com/Support/SystemUpdates/PSP

I want to play backup games on my PSP and from what I've read, I need to install custom firmware CFW to do so.

• http://www.psp-hacks.com/forums/f133/the-new-hack-your-psp-thread-t227349/
  
• http://pspcustomfirmware.com/
• http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061215080237AAW1qWE

In order to do this I believe I need a Magic Memory Stick and a Pandora Battery.

• http://www.psp-hacks.com/forums/f133/unbrick-downgrade-install-cf-on-your-psp-with-t186757/

What is a Pandora Battery?

• http://www.noobz.eu/joomla/news/pandoras-battery.html

Making a Pandora Battery

• http://www.pspmod.com/forums/psp-hardware-guides/28839-easy-use-pandoras-battery-guide-3.html
  
• http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/572482

It took a while to get the battery case pried open. Some guide make it seem like a pretty easy process, but you really need to work around the entire battery with a box cutter. Take your time and be careful! I nearly cut my hand doing this. I don't have a soldering iron, so I tried the safety pin method. I worked the pin until it broke off. I don't know if that was a good idea or not, but no turning around now. Another thing, I was really surprised how small those chips really are. Some folks have some really nice macro lenses to make the chip look big, but the pin you're working on is quite small. I didn't have the slim motherboard in my 1800 mAh original battery, so my only option was to lift/break the pin.

Using a Pandora Battery

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqMF622NpY4

To install backups, I think I need an ISO directory in the root of the memory stick. It is this directory that I copy the ISO or CFO? file. From there I should be able to access and play games from memory stick and not UMDs.

Portable Wiki?

I'm still trying to figure this one out. The product is called TiddlyWiki and they are trying to differentiate their product from other wiki's in that they are portable as a single page document. I guess I'll just have to download the software and give it a try to figure out what it can do.

UPDATE: I just downloaded the template page and I immediately got the gist of it. It's great. You can make all your edits within your browser and if you ever need to publish it online, it's just a single file html doc that easily integrates into your server setup.

I don't know what I'll use it for, but I can immediately see it's usefulness. I'm curious about how to secure the file and will have to look into this more closely.

Interesting manufacturing website

Ponoko offers an interesting service. They will create almost anything you can dream up that can be cut out of relatively flat sheets of material using their laser cutter. You design the templates, they cut the material and send it to you. I've seen lots of stuff from jewelry to furniture on their site. Their pricing is a bit mysterious, but what you can easily see are other people's products and designs for sale. Most seem over priced to me by about 40-50%, but they're interesting. Some folks have definitely put a lot of thought into their designs.