As an avid gamer I like to revisit some of the classics that I used to play as a kid, most notably Super Mario Bros. As I sold the system back in 1995 to get a SNES my only option is to play my old games on my PC, but playing Super Mario Bros just isn’t the same when you haven’t got a square brick for a controller that is giving you cramp in your hands! This ended up leading to me thinking – why not just convert an old controller to work via USB? And so I have. See below some pictures and a little demonstration video of the controller in use

If you’re as lazy as me, you’ll hate having to login to the web front end for your ReadyNAS every time you want to shut it down or getting up and holding down the power button for 5 seconds (it isn’t just me that hates doing this, right?). I finally decided to make an easier means of doing this which I thought I’d share with you all.

Although the title says this is for Ubuntu it should work in pretty much any Linux distribution seeing as it’s all pretty standard stuff. If you are using a different distribution you’ll have to use your distribution’s alternative to apt-get if it isn’t Debian.

The first thing you will need to do is install the Expect package using the following command:

sudo apt-get install expect

The reason we need Expect is to make the automation of the commands easier.

The second thing you will need to do is install the EnableRootSSH addon which is available from the official Netgear site (http://www.readynas.com/download/addons/4.00/EnableRootSSH_1.0.bin). Once you have downloaded this, login to your ReadyNAS web panel and make sure you are in Advanced Mode. Once logged in click the “Update” option underneath the System section and then click the “Local” tab. This screen will allow you to select the bin file you have just downloaded and install it to your ReadyNAS by pressing the “Upload and verify image” button. After the installation is complete you will have to restart your ReadyNAS.

Now that we have root access via SSH to the ReadyNAS and have Expect installed create a new document on your desktop and call it “ShutdownNAS.sh” and open it up in a text editor.

Copy and paste the following into the file, replacing IPADDRESSOFTHENAS with the I.P address of the ReadyNAS and YOURPASSWORD with the password you use to login to the web panel for the ReadyNAS (be sure to leave the \r at the end of the password) and save it:

Note: for some reason my blog is replacing the double quotation marks with a different character that will not work, so if you copy and paste this be sure to replace any quotation mark manually.

Now run the following command to make the file executable:

chmod 755 ~/Desktop/ShutdownNAS.sh

Now if you drag the file into a terminal or double click and press Run it will login to your NAS and shut it down for you; simples

If you have any problems with this or want any help / information for expanding on this script feel free to ask.

I’ve recently switched back to Ubuntu as my main operating system and wanted to continue to use Spotify but ran into a dead end after following Spotify’s own guide to run it in Ubuntu. I thought I would post up how I got it working as there are a number of people who have the exact same problem I had (that being that Spotify would display a message saying “There is a problem with your sound card”).

First of all, remove your existing WINE installation as we are going to be using the version that is currently in Beta. Do this by running:

• sudo apt-get remove wine

Note: you will have to manually remove the .wine directory from your home directory (if you can’t see it press CTRL + H when viewing your home directory)

Now open the Software Sources menu by going to Applications->Ubuntu Software Center, then selecting Edit->Software Sources. Choose the Other Software tab and click Add then copy and paste the line below.

• ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

Now that you have the repository setup use the following command to install the latest version

• sudo apt-get install wine1.3

Once WINE 1.3 is installed grab the Spotify Installer from This Page, save it to your desktop, name it “spotify.exe” and run the following command to begin the installation:

• wine ~/Desktop/spotify.exe

After the installation has finished use the following command to open the WINE configuration window:

• winecfg

In the configuration window that appears go to the Audio tab and you will most likely be presented with a message box telling you that a driver has been automatically selected for you (this is fine). Make sure that only the ALSA Driver box is selected and then press OK.

You can now run Spotify by using the following command:

• wine ‘C:\Program Files\Spotify\spotify.exe’

You can also create a launcher on your desktop using this command so you don’t have to load up a terminal every time you want to open Spotify.

This year my university decided to enter all the third year BSc computing students into a competition held by O’Reilly for the best and most original dissertation; my entry was of course phpAnalyzer. A couple of days ago along side the results of my degree, I got my prize in the mail as well as a little certificate – definitely a good way to end three years of higher education!

In addition to getting good results and winning the contest held by O’Reilly I also got a new job as a software developer, so now when I’m not at home programming, I’m at work programming! It’s been a bit tough making the transition from the life of a student to doing five full days of work every week but I can’t complain as I am doing something I love and I am working with nice people who are helping me get to grips with their way of doing things. As a result of starting my new job one of my new projects has been slowed down a bit, as well as the development of EDK (which is now nearly finished) but I’m slowly picking the pace back up as I get adjusted to working life. My new project is another Xbox LIVE game which I will also make available on the PC, I have managed to get quite a lot of people on board so far; at the moment the team consists of:

• One developer (myself as you can imagine)
• One artist
• Two graphics designers
• Five level designers
• Two audio engineers

The only thing really missing at the moment is someone to come up with a storyline, but if I fail to find anyone to come up with a plot I’ll just throw in more blood and violence – that is a suitable replacement for a good story isn’t it?

Over the past week I have released three new projects of mine, which are as follows.

CrackerHash -  a program I developed originally for the purpose of demonstrating how inefficient brute forcing can be as the number of potential combinations increases, however can be an effective tool for reverse engineering MD5 hashes. It should be noted I take no responsibility for any activity you use this application for, it has been released as a means of data recovery and as an educational tool and I do not encourage this to be used for any illegal activity.

MyVimeo -  a WordPress widget which allows you to display your latest activity on Vimeo in the sidebar of your blog. It is fully customisable in that it allows you to specify how many activities you wish to display and allows you to customise the title of the plugin in the sidebar to whatever you want.

tweetbox – a WordPress plugin that let’s you display your latest tweet(s) in the sidebar of your blog, in a manner which will not disrupt the rest of your blog should Twitter be slow in responding.

The reception of tweetbox in particular has been rather amazing; within the first 24 hours of it being released it had over 230 installations via its page on the WordPress Plugin Repository and was featured in Blogging Inside’s Top 100 Twitter Tools!

If you are a user of tweetbox or MyVimeo please head over to their WordPress pages and rate them to help them become easier to find in search results

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetbox/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/myvimeo/

I was browsing the DefCon forums earlier today and I came across a topic in which someone posted this video, and I honestly could not stop laughing at this kid who actually thinks tracert is some kind of out of this world tool that will list the IP address of every host connected to a website; I mean come on, the purpose of the tool is in the name, traceroute!

I have just been watching some footage from CES 2010 and this gadget is so awesome, it is a WiFi helicopter that you can control using your iPhone!

Check out the demonstration in the video below.

On the latest episode of the Hak5 podcast Darren Kitchen demonstrated how to install and boot Chrome OS (the new operating system being developed by Google for those of you who don’t know) from a USB flash drive, check out the video below to view the segment of the show which covers it.

The torrent mentioned in the video as well as further instructions can be found here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-google-chrome-os-and-run-on-a-real-computer/

If you want to watch the full episode head over to: http://www.hak5.org/episodes/episode-618

I recently ordered one of Apple’s new Aluminium Keyboards and as I expected I had some issues getting it fully working on a Windows machine, having never actually used an Apple keyboard before I was unaware that the alt keys on the Apple keyboards are actually where the Windows key would be on a regular keyboard, and the print screen and scroll lock keys are not present either, instead replaced by extra function buttons.

The only solution I came across was to extract the Windows drivers from Boot Camp however I didn’t want to fuss around trying to convert Apple’s DMG files to a format that can be mounted with any standard virtualisation software such as Daemon Tools.

Instead I made use of a tool called SharpKeys and re-mapped the appropriate keys, so now I can touch type as normal with my CTRL and ALT keys in the correct positions and use scroll lock and print screen, in addition I have also set F18 to lower the system volume and F19 to raise it.

If you are looking for the same functionality simply download This File, unzip the file inside and double click it, it will insert the appropriate values into your registry, after doing so you will need to restart your machine for the changes to become active.

Alternatively you can insert the following values yourself into the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
“Scancode Map”=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,07,00,00,00,37,e0,64,00,46,00,65,00,\
5b,e0,38,00,38,00,5b,e0,2e,e0,69,00,30,e0,6a,00,00,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\DosKeybCodes]
“00040402″=”bg”
“00000c04″=”ch”
“00001004″=”ch”
“00001404″=”ch”
“0001041f”=”tr”
“0000041f”=”tr”
“00000412″=”ko”
“00000804″=”ch”
“00000425″=”et”
“00000426″=”us”
“00010426″=”us”
“00000427″=”us”
“00000411″=”jp”
“00000423″=”us”
“00000402″=”bg”
“00000419″=”ru”
“00010419″=”ru”
“00010c1a”=”us”
“00000c1a”=”us”
“00000422″=”us”
“00010402″=”us”
“00020402″=”bg”
“00030402″=”bg”
“00020422″=”us”
“0000041C”=”us”
“0000041a”=”yu”
“00000424″=”yu”
“00000405″=”cz”
“00010405″=”cz”
“0000040e”=”hu”
“0001040e”=”hu”
“00000415″=”pl”
“00010415″=”pl”
“00000418″=”ro”
“00010418″=”ro”
“00020418″=”ro”
“0000041b”=”sl”
“0001041b”=”sl”
“00000442″=”tk”
“00000813″=”be”
“0000080c”=”be”
“00001009″=”us”
“00010c0c”=”cf”
“00000c0c”=”cf”
“00000406″=”dk”
“00000413″=”nl”
“0000040b”=”su”
“0000040c”=”fr”
“00000407″=”gr”
“00010407″=”gr”
“0000040f”=”is”
“00001809″=”us”
“00000410″=”it”
“00010410″=”it”
“0000080a”=”la”
“00000414″=”no”
“00000816″=”po”
“00000416″=”br”
“0000040a”=”sp”
“0001040a”=”sp”
“0000041d”=”sv”
“0000100c”=”sf”
“00000807″=”sg”
“00000809″=”uk”
“00010409″=”dv”
“00030409″=”usl”
“00040409″=”usr”
“00020409″=”us”
“00000409″=”us”
“00000452″=”uk”
“0000046e”=”sf”
“00000408″=”gk”
“00010408″=”gk”
“00020408″=”gk”
“00050408″=”gk”
“00000404″=”ch”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\DosKeybIDs]
“0001041f”=”440″
“0000041f”=”179″
“00010415″=”214″
“00000442″=”440″
“00000410″=”141″
“00010410″=”142″
“00010408″=”220″
“00020408″=”319″

If this has helped you then please Digg It so that others may come across it too!