Figure 1 - Yes, Kanye, once again you've told us what a giant tool you are.

I guess we shouldn’t expect more from a man who has said such things as:

“I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade.”

If this weren’t dumb enough in and of itself, Mr. West, in his phrasing, implies that a decade is longer than a generation.  His humility doesn’t end there either.  I really have no other way to lead into this than to say that what you’re about to read is so asinine that you may shit your pants in a fit of amazement at the undeniable cluelessness that the following statement displays:

“The Bible had 20, 30, 40, 50 characters in it.  You don’t think that I would be one of the characters of today’s modern Bible?”

Fucking wow.  I’ve decided to do my part.

To prevent at least one more person from listening to Kanye West’s music and to honor Taylor Swift since she got the shaft by Kanye, I went down to a second hand CD store, picked up a copy of Kanye’s “Late Registration”, and swiftly destroyed it with a Taylormade 4 iron.

Video after the break.

Figure 1 - Time to bring down some servers!

About a week back I received an email from the PlayStation Network asking me to fill out a brief survey, thereby registering me for possible selection for the upcoming MAG private beta test. Here we are, a week later, and I’ve been selected as one of the lucky few (figure 1), beta code sitting in my inbox.  This will be my second beta test on the PlayStation 3, with the first being PlayStation Home.  Let’s hope MAG is a little more worth my time.

If you’re not familiar with MAG, it stands for “Massive Action Game”–major fail in the title department–and is an online shooter designed with a unique server architecture allowing it to support online battles of up to 256 players at once.  Shooters usually fall stale with me as they feel like the same thing over and over, but I am excited to see if MAG can accomplish this feat of scale that we haven’t yet seen in console gaming.  The game supposedly also divides players into 8-player squads, with four squads forming a platoon, and four platoons forming a company.  MAG is scheduled to be released in January 2010.

Click after the break for proof screenshots of the invite and ensuing download.

Figure 2 - Congratulations, you've been selected to have your ass handed to you.

Figure 3 - 4.75MB closer to annihilation

…sigh…

Figure 1 - My PSP, ready for its new motherboard from the dark side.

What was a warranty voider to do?  After some research, I had found out how to tell if a PSP is hackable. There is a great forum post over on pspmod.com containing a guide on how to determine the hackability of your PSP.  I confirmed that my PSP contained the thus far unhackable TA-88v3 motherboard. I decided the simplest route would be to purchase a PSP identified as hackable from eBay, and swap out the motherboard with mine.  Upon completion, I would sell the eBay purchased PSP back on eBay with the disclaimer that the motherboard had been replaced.  It was a flawless plan, except that the aforementioned guide required knowing a lot of information about the PSP before purchasing it. I was not looking forward to Q & A sessions with many sellers asking for serial numbers and box codes.

There was, however, a simpler solution.  The guide also mentioned confirmed motherboards in certain limited edition PSPs:

Daxter Limited Edition Pack (TA-85v2/3.80 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
God of War Limited Edition Pack (TA-88v2/3.95 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
Madden 09 Limited Edition Pack (TA-88v2/3.95 OFW & TA-88v3/4.01 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
Star Wars Darth Vader Edition Pack(TA-85v2)
*Note – OFW stands for “Official Firmware”

I decided to go with the TA-85v2 motherboard. Why?  No technical reason.  I just felt that my PSP could use a little dark side with the Star Wars Darth Vader Edition PSP.  I was victorious in my online auction and was ready to swap motherboards.

DISCLAIMER: Any action you take past this point is at your own risk.  This procedure will void your PSP’s warranty and with all such procedures, carries the risk that you might damage your PSP or render it inoperable.  By continuing, you agree that if your PSP is damaged in any way, I will not be held responsible.  2Lincolns in no way condones the illegal use of ROMs or pirated software.

I was ready to swap the motherboard, except for one thing: I had no idea how to do it.  I looked for tutorials and videos all over the internet and could find bits and pieces, but nothing very comprehensive, so I decided to tackle it myself and make this tutorial. The scope of this post is limited to the procedure to replace the motherboard in a PSP, so I will not be discussing loading custom firmware or using a Pandora battery here.  Perhaps I will go over these topics in a future post.  To swap out the PSP motherboard you’ll need the following:

• Small phillips head screwdriver
• Small flat head screwdriver
• Razor blade
• Tweezers
• Electrical tape
• Microfiber cloth (for removing dust from screen upon reassembly)
• Patience and mad skills

The first step is to remove the battery cover and identify the 7 screws you need to remove. Only six screws will be visible until you remove the warranty sticker, which, if you have read it, will void your warranty.  This may be confusing for some, but if you’re still with me, read on.  I would suggest removing the warranty sticker gently with a razor blade.  I found this to be the easiest way to remove it without damaging other components.  I’ve noted the location of screws in the 3 images below (Figures 2-4, click to enlarge).

Once you have the 7 screws removed, opening up the PSP is quite easy.  Flip the PSP over so the screen is facing up and using your hands, slowly work the top cover off. It should come off rather effortlessly, so if it doesn’t, check to ensure you’ve removed all 7 screws.  When you get the cover off, you’ll be presented with all the guts and glory that make up your PSP (Figure 5).

Figure 5 - PSP! Hide your shame!!!

Take some time at this point to examine where everything is and how the system is put together.  The more comfortable you are with it, the easier it will be.  The next step is to remove the home button bar and the LCD screen. Take note that when I say remove, I mean remove from their seated positions.  Both are still connected to the motherboard with ribbon cables and fully removing them at this point could damage them, the cables, or the motherboard.

As we take each of these two pieces from their seated positions, we will simply be rotating them downwards, like opening a centerfold book we want to read sideways for some reason.  Remember to only rotate them on this axis and to not move them away from the PSP.

To unseat the home button bar, take a small flat head screwdriver and use it to gently pry it up, starting on the left side. The best way to do this is to put the screwdriver in between the black tabs on the left side of the bar (Figure 6).  This will not take much force.  Repeat the process on the right side of the home button bar and rotate the bar down (Figure 7).

Now that the home button bar has been unseated and rotated downward, we can do the same to the LCD.  You should be able to unseat the LCD by using your hands and gently lifting it from the sides, though you may have to do a little prying with the small flat head screwdriver. The LCD was mostly being held in place by the home button bar, so it should lift pretty easily.  Rotate it downwards as you did the home button bar.  Be sure not to scratch the LCD’s surface, and do your best to ensure it remains protected from scratches, fingerprints, and salsa.  I do not recommend eating chips and salsa when performing this procedure. I am not speaking from experience…shut up.

Figure 8 - Click to enlarge. You're gonna need it.

Now comes the tricky part.  This is where the patience and mad skills come in. There are a number of things that need to be disconnected or removed prior to removing the motherboard (Figure 8).  Some of the components are connected with delicate ribbon cables that can be tricky to disconnect. Most of these have a small brown lever clasping them in that you can lift with tweezers or a razor blade and gently pull the cable out.  The UMD drive cable employs a different method, with two tabs on either side of the cable that need to be moved to release the cable.  The smallest of the 3 LCD cables is the trickiest one, and I have yet to figure out a good method of removing it, save being very, very careful.

The WLan cable can simply be pulled up gently with tweezers as it is just plugged into the motherboard.  The power cable can be removed by rocking it left to right with tweezers while pulling it out.  The right battery will also need to be removed to remove the motherboard, though take care so you don’t break off the plastic tab holding it in like I did.  If you do break the tab, that’s why I told you to have electrical tape handy.  Be sure to set the battery away from your screws as it is magnetic. Once you have everything disconnected, take out the two screws holding in the left and right triggers.  Take care to remember how they go back together.

Figure 9 - Pandora battery and Magic Memory Stick, ready to install CFW.

Believe it or not, there is only one screw holding the motherboard in, located down by the analog stick. Once you’ve removed this screw, you can gently lift the left controls up and left and out of your way.  Remember, they are still connected to the left trigger, so do not fully remove them. Once you have the controls out of the way, you can begin to remove the motherboard.  Take your time as it can be tricky to get out, but should not take much force.  The USB-B port at the top of the PSP is part of the motherboard, so you’re going to want to lift the motherboard out from the bottom left. Once you have lifted it up some, pull it back towards you and you should get it out with ease.

Before you put your new motherboard in, take note of anything underneath it that might get caught, cables that need to be reattached, and the general layout of things. Especially make sure the memory card door is able to open and close with ease at each stage of assembly as it can tend to get caught.  Seat the motherboard by getting the USB-B port back into the chasis first and going from there.  Reattach and reassemble everything in the reverse order and you’re all done!

Figure 10 - CFW 5.00 M33-6 installed.

As I said before, the scope of this post is limited to the motherboard replacement.  That does not, however, mean that I won’t show you what I did after having a fully hackable PSP!  Using a Pandora battery and magic memory stick (Figure 9), I installed Dark Alex’s custom firmware (CFW) version 5.00 M33-6 (Figure 10). This firmware allows you to install homebrew applications on your PSP and still access the PlayStation Store.  You can purchase a premade Magic Memory Stick and Pandora battery (using the link above), or you can make them yourself by finding one of the many tutorials online. Note that not all PSPs are cabable of creating Pandora batteries.  The PSP hackability guide I provided at the beginning of this post has more on that.

What is the first homebrew application I installed after hacking my PSP you ask?  Was there any question?  As you can see in Figure 11, I didn’t hesitate to get The Legend of Zelda up and running on the NesterJ NES Emulator version 1.11. Remember, law abiding internet gnomes, to legally download a ROM, you must own the game (as the picture shows I clearly do) or delete the ROM within 24 hours of download.  My already beloved PSP has now been taken to the next level.  You know, if the next level is playing a game released in 1987 on a video game system released in 2005.

Figure 11 - Hard work pays off. If you'll excuse me, I've got some Triforce pieces to collect. (The lines on the screen are from the camera)

Let me know what you think of this tutorial in the comments and feel free to link to it.

Happy modding!

Figure 1 - Home owner smiling Bob is all for extension and expansion.

This post’s title originated from an odd and unintentionally humorous commercial my friend heard on the radio advertising male enhancement drugs. The commercial claimed the advertised product would make you thicker and wider. Unless your parts are shaped like a spatula, this does not make a whole lot of sense.  I was thinking about writing a post on this, but decided that I didn’t want to write about wang pills.  I decided the metaphor was appropriate to apply to the housing market, given that we’re all pretty much boned.

Speaking of dick measuring, representatives in both the House and the Senate have proposed among them five different bills affecting the current $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit, all trying to take some credit of their own as saviors of the housing market.  I applied the “popularity contest” principle to these because, despite slight variations, they all propose pretty much the same thing.

The common theme among the five bills is extension of the current credit. I can most certainly agree with this being the forefront of any initiative to modify the current credit.  Like others trying to weather an unsure economic climate, I had already made other financial plans and goals when I heard about the credit earlier this year. The prospect of getting $8,000 in return for purchasing a first home probably got many thinking about buying their first home, but it also left them scrambling.

Prospective home buyers have been left having to modify their financial plans, improve their credit, ensure they have a proper down payment, research available homes, familiarize themselves with the home buying process, and obtain financing. The credit’s expiration of November 30, 2009 meant that these first-timers would have to close on their first home within months, having not previously planned on purchasing.  Many surely would benefit from the tax credit as it exists, but the question remains: will the credit get extended, or even expanded, so more people can capitalize on the opportunity?

Figure 2 - You were expecting Scrooge McDuck perhaps?

For the financially savvy, this may not seem like a large undertaking for an individual, but we’re in a financial crisis caused mostly because, well, there are a lot of people out there who think a five year CD is an album released in 2004. Regardless of the difficulties any person may have in getting their financial ducks in a row (Figure 2), the opportunity is just too good to pass up.  Combine the tax credit with an abundance of available homes, relatively low mortgage rates, and falling home prices, and the market is prime for a first-time buyer.

I haven’t met anyone in favor of all of the spending that’s going on in the government right now, but if it’s going to benefit you, it’s hard to pass up on principle.  I’ve created a table below that organizes the five outstanding bills so you don’t have to read through boring detailed legislation. If you do want to read the bills and view their respective statuses, I’ve included a link to each in the “Bill” column. For those not hip to the Legislative Branch of the United States government, the “S.” and “H.R.” abbreviations on each bill designate whether they were introduced in the Senate or the House of Representatives.

¹Senator Isakson sponsored the initial first-time home buyer tax credit in the Stimulus Bill passed in early 2009.
²Retroactive for all purchases made after 4/8/2008.  Taxpayer may also claim purchase as if it were made December 31 of the previous year.

All of these bills are being shown as in committee at the time of this posting, and whether any of them get passed in any modified or unaltered form remains to be seen. I hope H.R. 2801 doesn’t pass though.  Representative Howard Coble named it the “Home Ownership Moves the Economy” Act, or “HOME” for short.  The world has enough acronyms, Howard.

Something to consider is how the pending status of these bills could affect the housing market.  If a prospective home buyer is aware of these bills, they may hold off in purchasing a home until these bills are either signed into law or rejected.  A potential roadblock to passage of any of these bills could be the rising pressure from the White House in getting health care reform at the forefront of the daily work of congress. The President’s Council of Economic Advisers released their executive summary on The Economic Case For Health Care Reform in June, and this issue will only gain more steam.

Given the fact that the common theme of all five bills is an extension, I think that one of these bills, in some form, will get signed into law this year. Which one and when, I don’t know, but with the August recess of congress coming up, I don’t expect it to be soon.  A legislator is the only job I know that they actually bring back recess as an adult.  I bet Joe “flip flop” Lieberman (I) gets picked last in kickball.

If the home buyer tax credit is important to you, write your representatives.

Figure 1 - Listen to "Rage Against the Machine", but don't actually fight the machine please. Update your display settings. (Image courtesy Sony)

I spent a decent amount of time designing 2Lincolns.com catering to those users who may visit the site with a resolution of 800×600 and those who may be using Internet Explorer 5.5. After awhile I asked myself, why the hell am I catering to the 1% of people stuck in the age of free Geocities web pages and animated GIFs? Many web developers feel my pain. With the quirks and periodical noncompliance of older browsers, as well as the display restrictions a resolution of 800×600 imposes, these internet users can be a hindrance to progressive and compliant web design.

It is my duty as a member of the internet community to discourage the usage of primitive technology for the sanity of web developers everywhere.  People, update your display settings or GTFO.  If you insist on browsing the internet in 1996 style, I’ll give you the internet circa 1996. That being said, if someone is visiting 2Lincolns with a resolution of 800×600, tough shit, they don’t get to see the page everyone else does.  Instead, they get served the following page:

Click here to time travel to 1996

I’m thankful to see that the majority of my visitors are using modern browsers such as Firefox and larger display resolutions, so the negative nature of this post doesn’t apply to most of you.  Just sit back, saavy internet user, and enjoy this walk through memory lane.  Table layouts, animated GIFs, horrible color schemes, and just overall HTML hell.  You know, kinda like Myspace.