Category: technology

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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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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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Good news, bad news and a Zune update.

Good news first. The battery replacement for the Zune works. Now for the bad news. Had my first issue with the server. During it’s first reboot it wouldn’t POST. Like at all. I tried using a different outlet. Tried resetting the CMOS, and it was just a whole bunch of nothing. So like any other tech I started to take everything apart and just get down to the motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Still nothing. At this point I’m starting to get worried. I don’t have any spare CPUs or RAM laying around and not much money to spare to get replacements. So I decided to pull out all the ram and just try one stick at a time. That seemed to work. Tried two, that didn’t work. Tried just one stick again and that worked. Now two sticks worked, then three sicks worked. Just for the heck of it I tried all four sticks and much to my surprise it worked like there was nothing wrong. I ran memtest and had no errors. I have no clue what happened. Everything was fine before the initial reboot. I just needed to reboot to update the kernel. Everything seems fine now. I’m just going to chalk it up to a gremlin or something. I’m hoping it’s not going to be an ongoing issue. I mean in a pinch I can probably run this off of my Beaglebone or Raspberry Pi…maybe. I rather not have to try.

Also while taking apart the Zune to put in the new battery, the display ribbon ripped. At least on some boards the display ribbon is also held down with some adhesive. This wasn’t mentioned on the iFixit guide at all. Not that it would have helped to know. The whole guide is mediocre at best. I will try do write my own when I get the new display. At least a new display isn’t too expensive. It’s just about 15$ shipped off of ebay.

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Zune battery

Finally managed to get a replacement battery for the Zune. Yey~ It’ll arrive sometime on the 2nd. Then all I need to do is the actual hard part of disassembling and reassembling the Zune. Should be fun. I may do a write up. I should, but I can be forgetful/lazy

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My Zune has arrived

Got my Zune in yesterday and it’s a lot smaller than I thought. It does need a battery replacement but I already knew that. The important thing is that it and the dock works which they both do. I managed to update the firmware and fill it with music. Getting the dock with it was really nice tbh, seeing how they go for about 10$ and I paid 10$ for both the Zune and dock. A new battery is about 20$ so all in all I’ll be paying 30$ for a working Zune and dock.

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iPods, Zunes, and the resurgence of dedicated media players

Is it just me or has there been quite a resurgance of dedicated media players? I can’t even find parts or broken media players for cheap any more. I’ve been trying to find just a logic board for a 6th generation iPod classic and oh wow how the prices have gone up. Logic boards are now about the same price as a whole “for parts” player these days.

Even the lowly RCA K@zoo which was my first mp3 player I ever had is being sold in the 30$ range. For a mp3 player that only has 32MB of storage and only supports up to 512MB SD cards this is quite a bit.

Is this a resurgence in popularity causing scarcity, driving up the prices? Is it the lack of parts? I think it’s a bit of both. Scarcity of parts was slowly driving the prices up, but with the new resurgence of dedicated media players it’s caused what’s left in the way of parts and used players to become even more scarce.

I’m hoping it’s not going to get as bad as what happened with minidisc players. Remember those? If you’re from the USA, probably not. They were more popular in Japan but had a cult following here in the USA. Portable minidisc players go for quite a lot now with basic models easily hitting the 100$ mark for a simple netmd model.

Oh well though. At least there are plenty of CD players. For now at least.

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Just won a Zune on eBay

I thought I’d try bidding on a Zune 4GB just for a laugh. Didn’t think I’d win it since I keep seeing them go for close to 30$ or more. And oh how I was surprised when I actually ended up winning the auction only bidding 10$. It’s not in box, but it does include a media dock and seems to be in good condition except for the battery which needs to be replaced. Though seeing how it is at least 13 years old at this point that’s fine. I can easily get a replacement and solder in the new battery. Only downside is that it’s the red one and I would rather the pink one. Oh well, can’t complain much for 10$ right?