WakeUp Clock v2 - straightforward, alarm-armed timekeeping for PSP

Straight from QJ.NET's PSP Development Forums, we're treated to a new candidate to fix a PSP owner's chronological concerns: WakeUp Clock. WakeUp Clock is a keeper to its namesake - the homebrew application has every intention of getting you up at the time you set. And that's all the WinShell app does. Every day.

If you're looking for special features, WakeUp Clock v2 does have one: it can play it's default MP3 alarm or it can play an MP3 you choose. Other than that, there's nothing thrilling to be had here. The app just transforms your PSP to a nagging, chronomeasuring device with a penchance for noise at the right time and does little else.

In short, it acts like an ordinary alarm clock, it sports an ordinary digital alarm clock face, and it even sounds like an ordinary alarm clock with the right MP3. But if you have a habit of hammering your past digital alarm clock at bedside, move the PSP somewhere far to avoid undue harm to a sound investment.

To set and arm WakeUp clock, just use the following keymap as guide ( means combo):

• CIRCLE - Toggle the USB switch
• RIGHT SHOULDER LEFT SHOULDER - Terminate the application, while storing settings for color and time.
• RIGHT SHOULDER RIGHT SHOULDER DOWN and UP - The key combo to change the minutes of the clock, if you don't want to do it the simpler way.
• RIGHT SHOULDER RIGHT SHOULDER LEFT and RIGHT - The key combo to change the hours of the clock, if you still don't want to do it the simpler way.
• LEFT SHOULDER - For preparing and calibrating the MP3 file. You could use this to browse for another target MP3 sound track.

There's no readme for this homebrew application, but if you place all the archive's contents under WakeUp (or the default PSP_ALARMA) at the GAME directory of your memory stick, you're good to go. More updates as we get them.

Screenshot courtesy of PDRoms.

Download: WakeUp Clock v2
Visit: QJ.NET's PSP Development Forums

CXMB 4.0 updated for 4.01 M33

 

Poisonhzkj's plug-in for the PSP has been updated by developer Miriam to accommodate Team M33's Custom Firmware 4.01, and apparently, this little PRX is going to be one of the ways to apply one of your 4.01 M33-compatible custom themes on the PlayStation Portable's XMB.

We get this straight from PSPGEN reporter MaGiXieN, who tipped us, together with dka7414, of the new update's significance.

Now as with the previous releases from Poisonhzkj, there's a process involved in getting custom themes to work on custom firmwares. Luckily, there are two ways to go about it if you're a newbie to custom themes:

• You can either take the source link we've provided below and set your gaze upon a step-by-step tutorial dotted with visual aids (translate the page so it'll get smoother); or,
  
• You could open up the bundled documentation with a non-Windows-inclined text editor (standard line breaks are sometimes non-Windows friendly) and take your queues from there.

If you've got your hands on a CTF (a custom theme file), make sure it's compatible with 4.01 M33. Usually authors would update upon the release of newer custom firmwares, so check back to make sure.

Once you're absolutely sure, download Red Squirrel's RSPsar Dumper v3.4 (anonymously updated) and a copy of Sony's 4.00 official firmware released recently, and then go about setting up Miriam's updated plugin for CTF use.


Download: CXMB plugin v4.0 for CFW 4.01 M33

QuickJump QuickPeek 53: Of Dark AleX's welcome back party, black holes in Switzerland, and when the Weekend Warriors take the stage

Finally, we're on Year 2! QuickJump QuickPeek has indeed been around for fifty-two weeks (which is ... less than nine thousaaaaand!) now, and we're giving each of our blogs the chance to shine in their very own Weekend Warrior post.

As you can see below, QuickPeek's that much more quicker of a peek, as its name should suggest. What with snowballing down the hill of long updates in previous QuickPeek editions, we're reducing things in bite-sized format for all of you guys. If you want a more in-depth look at a certain blog's week in recap, you can click on the links provided.

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We see great strides in custom firmware development this week. With the release of the official PSP FW 4.0 (and its subsequent 4.01 update) comes CFW 4.01 M33 from Dark AleX and the rest of Team M33!

Square Enix has also revealed quite a lot of details about Dissidia: Final Fantasy. There's nothing much new on the side of full character rosters, but speculation in the comments section sure do run deep.

Link: The PSP Weekend Warrior: the FW-CFW update tango, Dissidia mania, and PlayStation Store

Solid Snake's power level? It's over nine thousaaand! Even a couple of weeks after its release, Hideo Kojima's PS3-exclusive is still making waves - selling by the millions, no less.

And though our PS3 blog might seem like it's transformed into an MGS4 blog, we still have a couple of cool updates. Aside from more details on games like LittleBigPlanet and Call of Duty 5, news from Sony's corporate table has its ups and downs - respectively: a) the announcement of the new 65nm RSX Graphics Chip, and b) Sony's loss of US$3 billion since the PS3's launch. But what's this about CliffyB's statement?

Link: The PS3 Weekend Warrior: MGS4 still dominant, Sony on the comeback trail, and a little something from CliffyB

CliffyB is one of today's greatest minds in the video game industry. With Unreal Tournament and Gears of War (not to mention Jazz Jackrabbit from ages past) on his portfolio, he's got quite the two cents on MGS4.

Despite Bill Gates stepping down from his chairman position in Microsoft this week, things are still looking up. We've also got some coverage on the release of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD's beta (some freezing problems notwithstanding), and over on XBL, there's a handful of content to download: a GTA4 patch, a map for Frontlines, and two XBLA titles.

Link: The Xbox 360 Weekend Warrior: Say 'Bye-bye!' to Bill, and other flights of fancy

This week on the Wii scene, we get two Warriors waving the flag for the great waggler. On top of finding more details (and screens, mind you!) for Mario Super Sluggers and Wario Land, there's already talk of E3 line-ups.

Other than Nintendo games, third-party titles like CoD5 (yes! we're getting it this time too!) and Castlevania: Judgment are shaping up pretty well. Not to mention the official confirmation of Mega Man 9 for the WiiWare service!

With the Wii homebrew scene boom like no other, we decided to create a spin-off Weekend Warrior solely for the whole slew of Wiibrew updates we've gotten this week, which include: a new Twilight Hack that's compatible with Wii Menu Update v3.3, some homebrew media applications (the GeeXboX is a sure fire hit!), as well as games and emulators to boot.

Link: The Wii Weekend Warrior: the rest of the year's going to be busy

Link: The Wiibrew Weekend Warrior: the dawn of a new Twilight Hack

The Nintendo DS scene has been quiet of late - everyone's probably busy with Space Invaders Extreme or Final Fantasy Tactics A2. That hasn't stopped homebrew devs from releasing a ton of projects though.

Link: The DS Weekend Warrior: games, games, and more games

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What's new for the PC? In case you've been living in the deepest, darkest crevices of Hades, know you this: Blizzard has finally unveiled Diablo 3! From new NVIDIA and Radeon cards to patches, we got you covered!

Link: The PC Weekend Warrior: shooting for 2 billion in 2014, weighing copy protection

Lots of updates on the MMORPG blog, and as with the Wii blog, we decided to create spin-off Warriors for World of Warcraft and Age of Conan. We're geeks like that too - for sure you've noticed.

SOE's E3 line-up has finally been published, but more importantly, we get some details on their upcoming DC Universe MMORPG. Sweet! You can finally get to live your dream life of wearing undies on the outside.

Meanwhile, Age of Conan's seen quite a(nother) dose of patches - twice this week - and we've got some coverage on the undocumented changes both of them introduce. But in between regular updates for WoW, we hear of where the MMORPG found its roots: a free-to-play model!

Link: The MMORPG Weekend Warrior: DC MMORPG, AoC patches, WoW Free-to-Play, and item giveaways

Link: The World of Warcraft Weekend Warrior: Booze in the PTR, fire in the public realms, and a Lich King for the weekend

Link: The Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Weekend Warrior: patches galore and more

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Our Science blog has been running crazy with a big boom in comments lately - nice intellectual humor on the side too! This week, we hear more about black holes and veggies and chocolate (and Switzerland too)!

Link: The Science Weekend Warrior: black holes and Martian asparagus

What's this? A Trojan... for the Mac?! What's the world coming to? But that's not the only thing spotted this week: on the brighter side of things, we also got to see Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard running in the wild!

Link: The Apple Weekend Warrior: Snow Leopards and Trojan malware for everyone

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It's over nine thousaaaaannnnddd!

And that's it for the first week of our band of Weekend Warriors. QuickPeek sure looks different now, but wait!, we can't just leave it at that, can we? We all know that QuickPeek can't be QuickPeek without a final closing remark from our Comment of the Week!

While the individual Weekend Warriors may or may not have their own blog-specific Comment of the Week, that doesn't mean QuickPeek can't have its own, right?

Pretty tough week on our hands - lots of good comments here and there, probably totally over nine thousand. For one, that CliffyB post was quite a field day for all of us, wasn't it? And every now and then, a science article would explode with so much feedback from you guys.

But now, we turn our eyes to Nathanias who has quite a novel suggestion for Dark AleX's next custom firmware update. Well, what with so many features being incorporated in almost every CFW release, maybe there is room for some certain... changes?

We know our search engine ain't all that great... (not to mention the messy character/symbol transformation in our comments system too)... but we're sure some of you guys might get a kick out of it either way.

Link: Dark AleX releases PSP CFW 4.01 M33; 1.50 kernel add-on to follow

PSP Dungeon: Assault Run v1.0.5

PSP Dungeon: Assault Run is looking more and more awesome with every update homebrew developer charnold releases. The latest version of the application, v1.0.5, consists of a new EBOOT which implements a number of changes that make the game play smoother.

For those new to this game, PSP Dungeon: Assault Run is a first person shooter for the Sony PSP. Those who have been following this homebrew since it came out will be more interested at the changes charnold has added to the program. Here they are as taken from the release thread of the program:

06-28-2008 Version 1.0.5 (just a new eboot here)

• faster collision detection of enemy bullets vs. player
• faster collision detection of enemy vs. world geometry
• slightly faster rendering of bullets and world geometry
• new option in config.txt: [GODMODE] on/off
• weapon shooting range enemy sight range limited to 50 meter

Download: PSP Dungeon: Assault Run v1.0.5 Eboot
Visit: QJ.NET PSP Development Forums

PSPKVM v0.4.1: multiple bug fixes, Chinese input enabled

Hankering to play some Java games on your PlayStation Portable? Then check out homebrew developers m@x and sleepper's PSPKVM, a Java emulator for Sony's PSP, which was just updated to version 0.4.1.

The latest version of PSPKVM implements a number of bug fixes and optimizations that further improve the performance of the application. In addition, this version also sees the implementation of Chinese input. Here's a look at the change log as taken from the emulator's release post:

2008-06-29 02:50 v0.4.1

• Bug fixes:
• HTTPS connection always fail
• On Screen Keyboard fail to open
• Virtual Keyboard cannot input 4 and 6
• Input symbols and numbers while Chinese Input is open
• Improve performance of FileConnection InputStream.skip()

If you plan on using the application, be sure to go over the documentation which can be found on the official website of the program. Follow our source link below to get there.

Download: PSPKVM V0.4.1 for FW 3.x
Download: PSPKVM V0.4.1 for FW 1.5

Alek's Blog: On porting homebrew to 4.xx kernels

There's a new update over on Alek's Blog at Dark AleX's website about porting your homebrew. This time though, the porting isn't from 1.5 to 3.xx, but from 1.5 to 4.xx. There seems to be something new too, so homebrew coders out there might want to take a look.

The blog post outlines what you have to do to get your code running on 4.xx kernel. As Alek states in his blog though, "due to the poor changes from 3.xx to 4.00/4.01, you just need to keep on the prx format, AND the user mode on the pbp code."

In any event, as our posting system sometimes borks the code text, we suggest you take a look at the actual blog post to know more. Expect more important updates when they happen, alright?

In-development: SpeeDBoosteR for FuSa SD coming in July

Jonathan tipped us off to an interesting update from Andy_maN over at the FuSa Project website. There's a new video on the site that shows off the abilities of the SpeeDBoosteR for FuSa SD.

In the video, you'll see the SpeeDBoosteR option being used in conjunction with FuSa during a game of Crash Bandicoot Warped. At first, it seems as if the game was getting clipped, but with a fix of the settings, the game seemed to run smoothly and without problems, though Andy_maN did say it was running a tad bit too fast.

As a recap, for those who've yet to hear about FuSa, it's an application that allows PSP Slim owners to hook up their handhelds to any TV using any kind of video cable - be it composite, component, svideo, or d-terminal - and play their games in full screen mode.

In any event, expect this new build of FuSa to come out sometime in July. Till then, feel free to check QJ or the FuSa Project site for updates.