Blog

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Just a very minor update

I know I haven’t posted in quite some time. I’ve been busy with getting my life in a position where I can move in with my wifey. But I’ve been distracted by some health issues. No worries though, I’ll pull though.

On that note, I have been working on finding a more permanent place for the server that runs this blog and for now have found a place that I’m hoping will be it’s permanent place. Bad news is, I need more ram as I’m running a few other things on here as well. 16GB of ram isn’t cutting it anymore.

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Some odds and ends for the Creative Zen Vision M

A while back I bought a bunch of old mp3 players on the ebay. I’ve fixed most of them. Sold one of them. I’m using one of them. The rest; a Zune 30, an iPod mini 1st gen, and a Creative Zen Vision M. All but the Zen I have fixed. Why not the Zen you ask? It’s because the device is very picky about replacement batteries and most(all) replacements won’t work unless you run an old firmware. Version 1.41.01 or older to be exact. And therein lies the problem, finding that firmware or one older will lead you down a rabbit hole of broken links, forum posts(most of which aren’t in English), and sketchy sites that don’t even have the firmware. Creative themselves no longer has the firmware either.

So… I decided to go on a mission to find this “golden firmware”. Searched countless sites, clicked countless links, translated who knows how many pages just to find it. And I have. Yay~ Not only that, but I’m hosting it here. That’s right. Here. Along with some odds and ends so no one else has to.

Zen Vision M 30GB firmware version 1.51.01
Zen Vision M 30GB firmware version 1.41.01
Zen Vision M 30GB firmware version 1.30.02

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Fuck it, free shit masterpost

Books:
@pantopialibrary
libgen.rs
sci-hub.se for papers (you can also directly ask the authors. They may provide them to you for free)
calibre-ebook.com, free ebook reader
it-ebooks.info, programming languages ebooks
audiobookbay.nl, audiobooks
booksonic.org, audiobook streaming
mangadex.org, manga

Computer software:
Get Into PC (https://getintopc.com/)

Games:
vimm.net, NES era->ps3 era roms and emulators. Cons: slow download speeds.

nxbrew.com and nsw2u.org for switch roms

hshop.erista.me, 3DS roms

oldgamesdownload.com Old 90’s-2000’s PC games and some gamecube games. Technically, all of the games here are abandon ware, meaning the original company/creator doesn’t sell nor make money from the games anymore

fitgirl-repacks.site Heavily compressed PC games, and other various consoles. Small downloads and faster speeds for the size of the games. Somewhat limited game selection
steamunlocked.net, Steam games with easy-to-use installers

cs.rin.ru/forum/index.php A user forum for piracy support, usually about installing cracked games. Does have some scattered PC game downloads

amiibo.life Amiibo bins, can be loaded with some homebrew to load in games without any external source, or, if you buy writable NFC cards, you can make your own free amiibos

TV:
aniwatcher.com, animedao.to, twist.moe for anime

yesmovies.ag/yes.html, ww3.watchmovie.movie, movies

kimcartoon.li, cartoons

ustvgo.tv/ Free streaming of live tv, has most US cable tv channels

hyperbeam.com, Spiritual successor to Rabbit, allows you to stream your screen with friends

Recipes (not technically free, but cheap recipe websites)
Jack Monroe – Cooking on a Bootstrap (https://cookingonabootstrap.com/)

Budget Bytes (https://www.budgetbytes.com/)

MyFridgeFood (http://myfridgefood.com/) (finds recipes based on what you have in your fridge)

Cookbook Good and Cheap (https://cookbooks.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf) (free cookbook)

Youtube ad-free:
NewPipe (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/)

Free Android APKs:
BestForAndroid (https://bestforandroid.com/apk/)

GitHub Masterpost (https://github.com/Igglybuff/awesome-piracy): links to more torrent sites, software, VPNs, uBlock origin filters, ect. Basically everything you could ever want starting out.

Other:
thepiratebay.org

1337x.to/home, Torrent site for movies, shows, games, comics, ect

the-eye.eu/public, An archive of old roms, OS systems, roms (non nintendo), comics, books, ect, ect. Cons: No search function and slightly hard to navigate

Credits: I added some of the links myself, but many come from Tumblr posts I’ve seen in the past.

Also, remember to use an adblock and similar software before using streaming websites.

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Moved to a new hosting setup

So I decided to make things easier for myself and migrate this blog from running on bare metal to a virtual machine as well as making a backup. We’re still self-hosted, but now on a Hyper-V instance. The original hardware will be re-purposed for something else eventually since I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet. Until then it’ll still sit in it’s corner, out of the way like a good girl.

Migrating wasn’t as hard as I thought or how every guide made it seem. I just had to copy over some directories from the old machine to the VM instance. I’m sure you’re “not supposed” to do it this way, but oh well. All I have left is migrating my backups but to be honest, I’m not even going to do that. It’ll just be easier to just make a new VM and configure it.

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New shop and a life update

So I’ve been busy folks. So there’s a lot to catch up on. Been trying to find work, get my life to how it was pre-covid. Trying to save up again for the big move. Been trying to get into the iPod and Zune buy/sell/repair business. I also got a couple more things in the works. One of which is a CafePress shop. There’s a few things up now and hopefully more during the next coming days and weeks. The link is here and if you see something you like do buy it. It will really help me out.

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iPod update

I couldn’t find any sort of pinout for a 6th gen iPod classic and had to trace out a few pins myself. So I just need to buy a replacement connector and some magnet wire. Once I’ve got the connector and get it all soldered in I’ll post pictures and where the test points are located so if someone else has ripped out a trace or two of their battery connector can fix it as well.

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A major update

So, I’m not sure if anyone actually reads these or not and quite frankly I don’t mind either way. With that being said here’s some misc updates with the site and my life.

My site is currently hosted on my old desktop with a i7 3770k, 16GB DDR3, and a few spare drives for the OS, this site, and storage. It’s also currently shared with a few other things. I’m planning on changing this. I don’t see a lot of traffic on here and I feel like switching this to a VM or a raspberry pi would let me better use the hardware this site is currently on for my backups and media.

You also may note that I have not ads on here. I will keep it this way, but in the future I’m going add a link to patreon, ko-fi, or something of the like. It won’t be mandatory but every little bit helps

That’s about it for site news, now some personal news from the past <insert date here> or so.

I got a new phone, a iPhone 12 mini to be exact. To be even more exact, a iPhone 12 mini in green with 256GB of storage. I would have loved to get the 128GB model but I couldn’t find one in stock in any colour. And I absolutely love it. So glad I waited instead of getting the 2nd gen SE. It’s so smol I can one-hand it without having to use reachablility. The battery life is also not too bad for something this small, it lasts about an hour more than the 2nd gen SE from what I’ve heard people say. And omfg the cameras. Just being able to do 4K HDR video is amazing. Also night mode, that fucking night mode. 11 out of 10.

Projectwise, not much at the moment. Just the iPod and Zune for the most part. I’m also half-assedly working on getting a gopher server running on an esp8266 in Lua, but might have to switch to arduino because of memory constraints and the fact I find Lua a pain in the ass to program in. I’ll post the code and make a post about it when I get it done.

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A minor update

Replacing the screen on the Zune is still on hold. Not much a choice in the matter since I’m having some trouble finding a replacement screen. I could always just buy another one for parts on the ebay but that seems a waste.

However, I do have another pet project on my hands. I found a logic board for a 6th generation iPod classic in my junk drawer. The battery connector is gone as well as a trace. But it does still seem to work. At least enough to be stuck on the battery charging screen when I connect it to my PC. So all I need to do is find where that trace leads and solder in a bodge wire. Shouldn’t be too hard…I hope, the trace is tiny and I’m not even sure if it’s 100% needed. It looks like it’s just for a temp sensor. It also could be for balance, but I doubt it since it’s just a single cell. Here’s to getting it to work. Cheers~

The logic board in question
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It’s that time of year folks

It’s December and you know what that means. Rampant consumerism, holiday feasts! Festivus ❤. Jolly old men leaving toys for those he has deemed worthy. And best of all blinkenlights. That’s right. The best parts of the season is Festivus and blinkenlights. Now since I haven’t a Festivus pole, this isn’t about Festivus. This is about blinkenlights. Well not so much actual blinkenlights, but the seasonal holiday lights that also happen to blink.

Now, I’m a weird one. That much is obvious. I also love the twinkle and dance of flashing lights. Why? Dunno, some primal remnant of watching fire? Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way I wanted some and didn’t have any on hand. Now any reasonable person who wanted some blinking holiday lights and didn’t have any would just go to the store and buy some, not me. I had a string of warm white LEDs and a choice of several microcontroller development boards as well as a rPi model B and a Beaglebone black and was determined to put the two together.

So I did. I grabbed my msp430 development board, the string of LEDs, and my laptop and got to coding. Since I was an impatient bunny I didn’t bother with TI’s code studio. It’s a huge download, needs a login(last I used it, it needed a login), and is just clunky. Instead I used Energia, a prototyping platform based on the Wiring and Arduino frameworks. It’s “mostly” Arduino compatible and for just some simple blinking lights it’s all that is needed. I’m not going to go into a full tutorial on how to use Energia or Arduino there are several out there and if you used one, you can easily use the other. I will however share the rather crude and hastily written code.

BlinkDownload
Blinkenlights
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On pause

Sorry for the lack of update y’all. I’ve been dealing with some personal stuff. My wedding is postponed until further notice. Seasonal depression is starting to take hold. Money has been tight, causing the Zune repair to be put on hold.

Good news though. I’m heading back to work in a week-ish. Hopefully that’ll help with most things. In the meantime though I’ll try to post more regularly. Maybe post more recipes.