New way to browse the ps.com forums

Not liking the forums given PSP pages for browsing the PlayStation.com Forums, I decided to set out on making my own. Something I've kinda wanted to do for a little while anyway. I was also hit with a craving for programming, so I got to work. I think the motivation was sparked by the newfound life I put into my PSP with custom firmware.

Spent pretty much all day on making the page, and it sports some good looks, is technically skinnable in a way, with just a simple change to the CSS file.

Still a few things I want to do with it though...

  • Fix board list so it's easier to read
  • Allow making a post
  • Pretty up thread-view page
Feel free to let me know if there are any other features you'd like to see on that site.

Oh- the link: http://www.coreno.info/boardsus.playstation.com/

Read more : Comments(0) : Share : Jun 23, 2007

Custom Firmware

After telling myself I wouldn't update to custom firmware, and I'd instead just wait for later firmwares to be cracked, I went and did it anyway.

My main motivation was that I had gotten Ratchet and Clank for the PSP, which required FW 2.82 (I only had 2.80). I wasn't going to not play the game, so I was left with a couple choices. Give up homebrew, or use custom firmware.

After some researching, I found some instructions on getting the custom firmware on, which involved downgrading back to 1.5 first. But all went well.

Ratchet and Clank didn't seem to like the custom firmware though. It wouldn't start. Back to google I went, and found some settings that I had to change in the firmware to make it work. I had to set the CPU speed to 333 for the UMD, and also had to set the region to America and free the region lock or w/e.

I was also able to use AutoPopstation to get some of my PlayStation games running on my PSP. I was quite surprised though, they ran flawlessly.

Now back to my portable gaming.

Read more : Comments(0) : Share : Jun 22, 2007

New PSP Update!

I'll never figure out how so many people can be desiring to downgrade, and still have so many people that want to upgrade to the latest firmware.

Make up your damned mind, seriously. Either stay at a low firmware version like 2.0 and play all the homebrew you want, or keep with the latest firmwares and stop asking for a downgrader. This also applies to those constantly looking for hacks and such to play homebrew on thier current firmware version.

It's one thing if you have to update to play a must-have game, but accept that you're going to loose the ability to play homebrew.

I use firmware 2,00, and unless there is some compelling update, with features that out-weigh what I can do with homebrew, or there is some game that i must have, then I'll update. But in the mean time, 2.00 gets done what needs to be done. I kinda wish I had flash, but that's a tradeoff I have to make.

Moral of the story: pick a version and stick with it!

Read more : Comments(0) : Share : Sep 07, 2006

PSP2?

People seem to think there is going to be a PSP2 sometime in the very near future. Anyone who has thier head on straight and has been in the video game industry for any period of time knows, that the odds of a PSP2 coming out antytime soon is basically impossible. Sony has PS3 coming up very soon, and Nintendo hasn't even hinted at a new device. Additionally, the PSP is doing pretty well I think, and Sony has no reason to release a new PSP so soon.

If they were making one this soon, we would have heard about it by now. Sure, I'm sure one is in the planning stages and engineering, but I highly doubt we'll be seeing anything for at least another year.

Enjoy your PSP :p

Read more : Comments(0) : Share : Mar 12, 2006

Where did my memory go?

You never acutally loose anything when you format any drive or memory device. It's all a matter of how the acutal space is converted to Kilobyes, Megabyes, and Gigabyes.

Lets take the following image for example of a 1gb memory stick for a PSP.



Its acutal capacity is 995,819,520 bytes. Now, You may look at that and see 995MB, which is correct if you're dividing by 1,000,000. But Windows seems to be reporting 949 MB... Where did the 46MB go?

Nowhere... lets divide like a computer...
995,819,520 b / 1024 = 972,480 KB
972,480 KB / 1024 = 949 MB

Nothing lost, just converted differently. Try this trick on any sized drive for any device, and you'll find that no memory is in fact lost, Windows just converts the numbers by dividing by 1024, while we divide by 1000.

Why computers divide by 1024 you ask? Well, in short, computers deal with data in binary (1's and 0's). Eight binary digits make a byte. 1024 divides evenly by 8.

You can run the same math on this example (a much larger drive, with a different file system):

Read more : Comments(0) : Share : Feb 27, 2006

PSP 3.0 Hype

You gotta love the hype surrounding the supposed PSP 3.0 firmware. The thing is, everyone thinks the next update will be 3.0 and it will be revolutionary with all kinds of miracle-achieving capabilites. All this, and Sony has hardly hinted of a new firmware release. They announced a GPS system, so that will require a firmware update for the software for that (probably), but even then it could operate all via UMD.

The PSP has limited resources and capabilites. While it will be great to see some of these things rumored around the internet, some of it is just not possible. I doubt we'll be able to get Java or Flash support simply because of the RAM it consumes that the PSP doesn't have, and it can present many security risks.

Chances are, the next update will be 2.7, and merely be a security update. Or, better yet, that's what 3.0 will be.

Read more : Comments(0) : Share : Feb 17, 2006