Hi! It’s been I long time since my last post (I already got both VK and my new faceplate). Starting today, I will post every day my favorite link for the day. It’s a nice way to share my interests as well as making others discover new websites. Here’s today’s link:

http://www.schmap.com/

So, I’m really exited about this one because I’m a world traveler, and this little piece of software really is a big help for me. Schmap lets you virtually visit cities from your computer in order to plan your trip in advance, or avoid being lost once you get there. Hope you like it!

After reading the metareview from PSP Fanboy, I was impressed by how bad grades the game got. However, after reading the comments, I decided to check the user reviews instead to see what other, non-professional players think. In Gamespot, they are in the sevenths. On IGN, the grades are also in the sevenths. After this, I sucked it up, and started searching for the game. In order to prevent a money loss, I was lucky enough to find one on eBay for around 10€, 13€ with shipping. It should arrive in 1-3 days, so expect my review sometime soon.

So, I was getting bored of the stock faceplate because, I see it this way: I have custom firmware, custom wavelines, custom background, custom fonts, custom icons, etc, so why not have a custom faceplate?

I found Hardstore.com, and italian website selling game stuff (kid of like play asia, only european) and it was really cheap, I mean, normally the camy faceplates cost $20, but through that website, I got it tax-free, plus the cheap price it already had, which came to a total of €17. Not bad, eh? I chose the silver twin dragons one (pictured avobe): I don’t like gold, plus, I don’t like the hell skull one (too much drawings)

It should arrive in arround a week or so, so expect a review and an instalation video sometime soon.

I found on PSP Gen (french website) that custom firmware 3.30 for the PSP will in fact have extra functionnality.

Original Post:

“Mathieulh vient donc d’annoncer la bonne nouvelle a MaGiXieN :
Si, comme DarK_Alex l’a annoncé hier il n’y aura pas de grande innovation dans le 3.30 OE il n’en reste pas moins qu’une petite surprise vous attendra dans l’émulateur PS1 integré.
En effet en travaillant sur celui-ci, ils se sont rendu compte qu’une option permettant de régler la vitesse de chargement (Dans le jeu) des ISOs PS1 est présente dans cette nouvelle version.
Précedemment, dans les anciennes versions, la vitesse du chargement se faisait à l’identique par rapport à la PS1. Aujourd’hui, il sera possible, via une option, de choisir entre le mode original et un chargement accéléré !
Nous profitons de l’occasion pour vous dire que le 3.30OE est en bonne voie et que, DarK_Alex n’ayant toujours pas de PSP, il n’y a toujours pas de date précise prévue.”

Which I translated into:

Mathieluh has just announced good news to MaGiXieN:

Even if Dark_Alex announced yesterday that there wouldn’t be a big innovation in 3.30 OE, there will be, however, a little surprise waiting for you in the integrated PS1 Emulator.
While working on it, the found out that there was an option allowing to define the load speed (in the game) of the PS1 ISOs is present in this new version.
In the older versions, the loading speed was made identically to that of the PS1. Today it will be possible, via an option, to choose between normal speed and accelerated speed!
We take this opportunity to say that 3.30 OE is coming along nicely, but, scince Dark_Alex still hasn’t got a new PSP, there is not a defined date for it.

That’s what they said. Although I support custom firmware for its ability to play homebrew, and not for the illegal aspect of itI wish less people stop using it for piracy, but for functionnality.

TigerDirect.com has the PSP Value Pack for $149.99 without rebates. This seriously beats the $169.99 pricetag the Base Pack now has. I think that if TigerDirect can put the price that low, sony definetly can. That would mean the Giga Pack could cost $199.99, the Value Pack $149.99 and the Base Pack $99.99! Now that’s cheap, $30 cheaper than the Nintendo DS Lite! I don’t see why they couldn’t do that…

via TigerDirect.com

IGN has put on their website 3 of the songs that the highly anticipated Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter will feature. The songs are The Tragedy of War, A Bridge Too Far, Juarez Under Fire by Tom Salta. You can hear them by clicking here.

Via: IGN

I’m really exited about this one because I really enjoyed the first one and the Japanese demo of the second one that came out. Unfortunately, it’s sunday and everything’s closed, so I’ll drop by the store tomorrow. Maybe I’ll write my first impressions.

PS: Dates throughout Europe are different. In France it will come out wednesday 11th, in the UK the 16th, and in here (Belgium) tomorrow.

Picture from the Exit 2 demo, via PSP Fanboy.  Click it to download (from them)

This saturday I had the chance (again) to go to Paris. Scince I’d been there before, I thought that not taking a “real” camera wouldn’t matter, so I decided to put Chotto Shot (PSP cam) to the test by using it as if it was a main camera.

The results of this “experiments” can be found by clicking the “more” link. There are sample pictures taken, as well as comments and something interesting I found apparently which I don’t know what happened. Hopefully somebody will read this and give some feedback.

A PSP Fanboy reader commented one possoble explanation for the blackout: “I’d suspect that much like the PS2 eyetoy camera, the PSP camera adjusts its aperture artificially. This means it makes sure your photographs aren’t too bright or too dark using software instead of a mechanical method that most standalone cameras use (which physically limit the amount of light that hits the sensor/film.)

Therefore, because the sun was so bright on the CCD sensor of the PSP camera, the software tried to adjust for the amount of light hitting it but instead just hit a wall where anything less bright than that would appear completely black. Possibly a small software glitch. Which would be why resetting the PSP solved your problems.”

To me, this seems like a very logical explanation, so I think this is what happened. Plus, I’m using 3.10 OE-A, which can be quite unstable sometimes. This morning I tried pointing a the sun, and nothing happened, so…it could be a one-time-only thing, but what’s important is that it’s still working just fine.

Of course, all the pictures had to be taken with a 4:3, 1280*960 resolution instead of 16/9, 480*272 scince it’s supposed to be a full camera, and it should be viewable on PC. Therefore the pictures don’t look very well on the PSP’s screen unless you zoom at least 50%.

When I arrived the weather was horrible. There wasn’t any rain, but it was very foggy and ugly. However, the chotto shot took the pictures just like a normal camera would do. It wasn’t the cameras fault if the weather was so bad.

A few hours later, the sun came out slowly, and the camera did an amazing job considering it’s only 1.3 mp. One thing I didn’t like about the camera is that after the shooting sound, the picture is actually taken one or two seconds later, which can be very upsetting when moving in a car.

The other pics look just as good, so let’s get indoors. Once indoors, if the lighting is good, you can get really, good pictures, like the Venus statue on the Louvre museum on the picture below.

These are examples of the pictures indoors, and outdoors. All the others look just as good , under the same circumstances. So instead of posting 50 pictures that look the, just look at the examples and if you want to see the rest visit my flickr stream (link below).

Now to the discovery. We all know Chotto Shot is not an expensive camera. Therefore, even if it’s lens take good quality pictures, the camera is made with the cheapest materials possible to keep its 50$ pricepoint. Well, before I left Paris, on my way to the train station, I wanted to tak a pic of the et (eiffel tower) with the sunset. And guess what happened: for one little second, the sun was SO bright my eyes hurt and I had to close them, and the camera went completely black. The sun killed the lens for some time. I watching and taking pictures, all black, until I turned off the PSP completely, and rebooted it, and it was working again. My hypothesis is that the Sun might kill the lenses for a little time if it’s too bright. I would like to recive some feedback on that.

Well, overall, the camera did GREAT. Now you know it works like a main camera. It’s not the greatest camera in the world, and you should not use it in the dark because it won’t work. I’d like to see a flash mod for it from acidmods or somethin’. I shall give it an 8/10: -1 for no flash, and -1 because for the size it could have been 2mp. That’s all! Oh, and by the way, you can check out my Filckr stream by clicking here. (all th epictures aren’t up yet, and I willl take as much pictures and videos as possible)

But I haven’t opened it yet, because I’m in a middle of a Bleach episode so….

I’ll probably videotape unboxing later ^^

Seriously, a coupon for 1$ off every item above 100$? Some people are crazy.