Web Talk

One of the things I really like about my Nintendo DS is the big homebrew community that is always at work to create new applications to expand the way we use the little console. Today I want to speak about a little program I came across some months ago, and that I regularly use since then. It is called DS Weather report and, if you have a WiFi connection, lets you check the weather all over Europe (no USA sorry). The website is in french so I will try to write the most important feature here:

• Complete maps of all Europe
• Zoom in and zoom out
• More than 3300 cities in the database (and always more than 40000 cities available by code)
• Fast download time of weather information: a cache is used on a server, with a duration of one hour.
• Read along the cities temperatures and local weather the most important news available on Internet
• Touch screen features
• Lots of info available such as: temperature, humidity, wind, UV etc.

If you want to download the application click here. Remember, to use this homebrew application you have to own a slot such as R4. Read more about homebrew here.

Would you like to draw on the fly, while you are walking along the street or while you are doing something else? Do you wish to take quick sketches or write something fast without loosing any time to look for a block note or a piece of paper? Do you have a Nintendo DS? Wait a second! What the heck does Nintendo DS have to do with drawing? Well, actually it has to do more than you thought! As a matter of fact, thanks to a simple, small homebrew application, you can turn your little console into a notebook to write and draw whatever you like! The application is called DS Notes and of course it is freeware. Reading from the forum where it was posted:”DSNotes is an application for the Nintendo DS, designed to provide a way to quickly jot down and save notes or small sketches. The program has been designed for lightning-quick saving, browsing, and loading of notes (stored as black and white bitmaps, each only 6kb in size). You can check out the readme.txt for more info.” Download it now!

If you want to download the application click here. Remember, to use this homebrew application you have to own a slot such as R4. Read more about homebrew here.

Ok, I really don’t buy this piece of news, but anyway I want to report it. Nintendo has just claimed to have lost $ 975 million dollars because of piracy in the 2007. Well, apart from the fact that this figure seems a little too exaggerate to me, I also think that, if on one hand piracy does exist, on the other hand it is relegated to a small portion of people. The hacking phenomenon is for some geeky guys that want to mod and hack their nice Wii or Ds. Majority of people is not into this kind of thing nor they do where to start from. Nintendo should think more about supplying large quantities of Wii and Ds to the stores (since there is a lot of shortage) instead of spreading these whining lies.

I have been wondering about how to read documents on Nintendo Ds for a long time but now I know it is possible. There seems to be no limit for this little big console and the community of independent developers making programs for it. I have to confess you that I discovered this software thanks to Wikipedia. The whole Wikipedia article about DS homebrew can be found here. Just go to the end of the page and you will find a long list of software that runs on DS. If you don’t find it, that means that the page is being updated. Just check it back later and you will see it. So, the software I was talking about is called DS Reader. Just download it, put it into your DS SLOT (yes, you have to buy this card if you want to run homebrew) and you can start reading your text files (.txt). Let me advice you to buy the R4 Slot Card. I own it myself and I have never run into any kind of issue. If you want to find more about Nintendo Ds and homebrew go here. By the way it seems that you need some DLDI patching to run the reader as it is written on the author web site. I didn’t have any need to use it but if you need to patch it read further for more infos. Continue reading »

If you have got a Nintendo DS and a nice DS SLOT-1 flash cart you can play around with a lot of homebrew softwares giving you the opportunity to do a variety of things your DS normally isn’t designed for. A wonderful piece of software changes your little console into an organizer able to: read rss feeds, chat, browse the web, read documents and pics and organize your life. Not bad for a little device which is supposed to run just games, isn’t it?

DsOrganize
Wiki Dsorganize

Nintendo DS is the most sold portable consolle in the world. You can play with tons of games and if you want you can use an unlimited quantity of homebrew applications. But how to use these home programs? Well, the first step is to read this wikipedia article:

• Wikipedia nintendo ds homebrew
  

After that go to this web site speaking about homebrew and download the software you want:

• NDS homebrew
  

And to finish buy this nice slot:

• R4 Revolution

Keep in mind that R4 slot works right out of the box. It also contains a nice program to listen to MP3 with your DS. The only thing you have to do is to buy a micro SD card (I personally use a 2 Gb SD) and put all the roms into it (the slot uses a SD card in order to run the software). I can guarantee you that everything works like a charm since I myself have one of this slot. Remember, you can even download into your slot DS roms with games but…well, it is illegal! ;P