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My Synology NAS is really versatile and fulfills the most mundane tasks. At this point in time the NAS serves up my iTunes, streams HD-movies to the PS3, has all my software stored centrally, is used as an iPhoto server, manages my backups, acts as a Squid-caching server and now manages the PS3 firmware.

A rainy weekend and the realisation that my Perl skills totally suck, have eventually made me create a small application which produces the following:

Yes, a history of the latest PS3 firmwares. After having installed my Squid-proxy server, I noticed the traffic coming from the PS3. One of the URLs was quite interesting: http://fuk01.ps3.update.playstation.net/update/ps3/list/uk/ps3-updatelist.txt. When you open the URL you will see a text-file describing the latest firmware version as well as the download link.

It was (relatively) easy to write a shell-script which downloads the update-file, then checks if a new firmware was released and if so, it will download the file and then notify you via an email of it. If your NAS or Linux server runs HTTP, I have included a simple Perl-script which lists all the firmwares and allows you to download them.

You add the PS3-firmware checker to a crontab and by the time you check your email, you will be notified that the latest firmware has been downloaded already.

Of course, if you would like to have the same cool functionality, use Paypal below, donate anything you like and get the download instantly (remember: you need wget, perl and the knowledge of a text-editor to adjust a few settings in the script):

It took me 32 hours since 29th September to finally get the Burnout Paradise Elite trophy. This translates into 44 owned cars, 4 bikes and 1300 miles travelled.

Most trophies are very easy and just take time. Amongst the more frustrating ones are the midnight challenges on the bike - although the light-conditions are realistic, it takes some serious practice to beat the challenges (you can't see beyond 10-20 metres).

All online timed challenges are super frustrating. A timed challenge consists of two parts. The first part is that a number of players meet at a certain location and the 2nd part is the actual challenge. The frustrating part is that players joining the timed challenge either exit the game because they are incapable of completing the challenge or they just don't join up for the challenge. In short a punch of pricks which ruin the experience. Once a player leaves the timed challenge, you have to start all over again - damn annoying if you are almost at completion of part 2.

It took in excess of 6 hours just to get 10 timed challenges done. Once I heard that familiar "bling" on the PS3 and got the last Burnout trophy I was super-satisfied - lol.

Well, it does not happen often that you get a mention in N4G - lookse here

What is all the hype about? Sony has acknowledged me as one of their super-customers and I have sofar participated in every single beta:

• Home (first and only South African)
• Motorstorm Pacific Rift (2nd reported invite)
• Resistance Fall of Man 2 (1st reported invite)
• SOCOM 2 (3rd reported invite)
• Little Big Planet (2nd reported invite)
• Killzone 2 (1st reported invite)

What's there to say other than: THANK YOU SONY. (Now please invite some more South Africans ---- you will see your revenue soar)

Please visit our great forum to support our cause in getting our own servers and put pressure on Sony!!!

From my invite:
Enter the most fearsome theatre of war you've ever seen.
Developed by Guerrilla Games, Killzone 2 is the highly anticipated first person shooter created exclusively for PLAYSTATION 3.
Following events and action from the original Killzone for PlayStation®2, two years after the Helghast assault on Vekta, the ISA is taking the fight to the enemy's home world of Helghan. The ISA goal is clear: capture the Helghast leader, Emperor Visari, and bring the Helghast war machine to a halt.
• Experience realistic, highly atmospheric and destructible environments that respond dynamically to the violent conditions on the planet Helghan
• Control an arsenal of new and unique weapons and vehicles, in addition to trusty Killzone classics such as the M82-G and the StA-52 LA
• Engage in an extensive single player campaign and thrilling multiplayer mode
For more information about Killzone 2, screenshots and videos, please visit the Killzone 2 information page on eu.playstation.com by clicking on the following link:
http://uk.playstation.com/games-media/games/detail/item101903/

By the sounds of it I seem to be the first South African to have received an official Playstation Home invite:

PLAYSTATION Home (also marketed and referred to simply as Home) is a community-based service for the PlayStation Network which has been in development since early 2005. Home allows users to create an avatar for their PlayStation 3 console. This avatar will get their own virtual apartment space (think Second Life), which can then be adorned with items users can receive in several different ways.

How did I get chosen? Not sure - Sony has stated that users will be chosen based on their activity on the PlayStation Network and the PlayStation Store - and maybe it is just all my trophies I have been collecting - smile.

Update: The invite is not fake. Redemption of the PS3 promotional code worked and Home is downloading (about 88M.

Update 2: Proof of invite and download below:

Update 3: Just to clarify - I am a South African resident, using my South African PSN-ID to be in Home.

Ever since the release of the 2.40 PlayStation 3 firmware, PS3 gamers everywhere have been clamoring for titles beyond Super Stardust HD to earn Trophies in. While a slew of new titles coming later this year will offer support for the system, some studios are going back and patching existing games to give players another reason to play through their games again. One of these updated titles is be Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Naughty Dog's excellent island adventure game released late last year.

The Uncharted patch was released yesterday and I have officially become a PS3 trophy whore. 3 more trophies to go in SSHD, some 15 to go in Eden and a good 40 to go in Uncharted.

Update (2008-12-23): I have discovered an alternative to the method below, which works equally well (although not as fast as the DVD is ripped and re-encoded) - details are posted here.

Wow - it has taken me nearly 8 weeks to figure it out and the solution is so simple. The vast world-wide web seem to have no appropriate solution for (legally) ripping a DVD to a movie-file, so that it can be conveniently stored on a multimedia-server without having to hunt down the DVD itself (or having to get up between movies - )

I was looking for an easy, automated way to rip a DVD with it's surround-soundtrack and then stream it to the PS3 via the UPNP server. Yes there are tutorials out there to rip video and audio separately, then mux and demux and re-encode the whole thing into a specific video container. Problem is that once the codec changes or a new device comes out (such as the ATV) your tuned, 6-lines of encoding-optimisations parameters (which not even a rocket-scientist understands) are useless.

The screenshot below shows Transformers being streamed over a AEX-WAN onto the PS3 (notice the 5.1ch?):

The above was straight-forward: vobcopy -l. The latest version of vobcopy will rip the title with the most chapters as a VOB and the PS3 is more than capable of streaming it without jitter or drop in quality. (Transformers will rip to 7.5GB for the whole movie)

Alternatives? I have not been able to find a way to rip and re-encode a DVD via the command-line, retaining surround-sound and good video quality. Handbrake was not up to the challenge and many other options are just involving too many manual steps. So if you have a surefire way of reducing file-size and achieving 5.1 surround sound let me know.

In a couple of days, I am going to get this great NAS-device:

The DS107+ features a single-bay 3,5" drive bay and I will populate it with a 1TB Western Digital drive. The WD's have been quite reliable in the past (my PS3 is running with a 250GB Caviar drive for the last 12 months). The DS107+ features a 500MHz CPU and 128MB RAM onboard; it provides 3 USB 2.0 ports and a Gigabit connection. The NAS will be hooked up to the Belkin N1 wireless router and then act as a backup device, UPNP- and iTunes server. Movies will be streamed straight via UPNP to the PS3 and then pushed through onto the big-screen and to my Soundbar in all it's high-def glory.

The device features some impressive performance-stats: transferring a 2GB file via Windows will take over 1 minute. Transfer-speeds: via Windows (Upload: 15MB/sec, Download: 28MB/sec), via FTP (Upload: 12MB/sec, Download: 38MB/sec)

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