Today is Star Wars Day, which means tonight is Star Wars Movie Marathon Monday! Also, Star Wars Weekend is approaching!

My project for this weekend was to soft-mod my Wii in order to install and run Homebrew applications. Why mod your Wii? The homebrew scene offers tons of useful and fun games and applications for free! Also, once you soft-mod your Wii with the Twilight hack, you can run back-ups and even play DVD movies on your Wii. (If you choose to do that!)

This isn’t a tutorial, this is just to get you pointed in the right direction. Hopefully, save you a few hours of pain and all the time spent surfing the internets for directions, etc. Mostly, I put this stuff up here to refresh my memory when I have to mod my next Wii.

In order to run homebrew and install the Twilight hack, you will need a copy of Zelda: The Twilight Princess and you have to be running version 3.3 or 3.4 firmware on your Wii. You can check this by going into settings, it will show you the version number on the top right of the screen.

I can’t say for sure if you will be able to run it or not, depending on your firmware. If it doesn’t work for you then you may need to downgrade your firmware. Which is very risky and could brick your Wii, rendering it a pretty little paper weight.

In my case, I had to downgrade my firmware, but all went well. You can find the software to do this on the internets. I found a great and reliable source on PirateBay.

The Soft-Mod

And that’s it! The Homebrew channel also has a Homebrew browser, similar to the Wii shop, you can download everything right from your Wii.

If you want to run back-ups on your Wii, here is another great tutorial at instructables, How to Play Back-ups on Your Wii and another great tutorial here.

Anything you do to your Wii, you do so at your OWN RISK. Modifying anything on your console will void the warranty! Good luck!

I’ve tried Google’s browser, Chrome, although it seemed a bit faster than most browsers, it wasn’t enough for me to part with Firefox. Chrome doesn’t offer extensions or plug-in capabilities as of right now, however, Google plans to change this in May.

I have entirely too many plug-ins that I rely on in Firefox to switch browsers, but I will definitely give Chrome another try when plug-ins/extensions are made available for it. Until then, Firefox and I will not be breaking up.

Chrome does offer some great features that aren’t available in Firefox natively, however, with the power of plug-ins and extensions you can add a few of Chrome’s features to Firefox.

Chrome’s Features in Firefox Via Extensions:

• Download Statusbar - Get rid of that separate download window and put your downloads in the status bar
• Locationbar - Highlights the root domain of the website you are on (helps reduce spoofing risks)
• Stealther - Leaves no trace of your browsing session
• CyberSearch - Adds advanced Google Search capabilities to the address bar
• Chromifox - Chrome theme for Firefox

Now I have some of Chrome’s features in Firefox to tie me over until Chrome adds extension capability. Until then, Firefox will remain my default browser.

Amaze.fm allows artists to upload their music where it will be listened to, rated, reviewed, and tagged by the community.

Each week the highest rated song will get played on a nationally-syndicated radio station. Very cool for aspiring musicians who want to get their music out there!

On January 9th, Microsoft will be releasing Windows 7 Beta to the public. Windows 7 will only be available to the first 2.5 million people and the software will also expire August 1st, 2009.

Even if you aren’t one of the 2.5 million to get the download, at least you know the torrents will have more seeders now.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) was a cult television comedy series based on a man and his robot sidekicks trapped on a satellite in space and forced to watch terrible movies, especially science fiction B-movies. In order to stay sane while watching some of the most terrible movies ever made, Joel (later replaced by Mike) would make running commentary on the film, making fun of every second of it (riffing).

Unfortunately, MST3K was canceled in 1999. However, RiffTrax has been born on the web! Although, you don’t get your favorite silhouettes of the crew, you still get all the great hilarious commentary from Mike Nelson and various other guests to make it through some legendary great films like Mariah Carey’s “Glitter” or “Roadhouse” and even newer movies such as “Casino Royale” and dozens of others.

RiffTrax offers you to download an MP3 of their commentary and you can sync it up with your DVD and they also offer some pay-to-play videos on demand.

Long live MST3K!

Ever wanted all of your favorite Google features all in your Gmail? Now you can essentially turn your Gmail inbox into your start page with the Firefox add-on, Integrated Gmail.

With the Integrated Gmail extension for Firefox, you can seamlessly add various Google apps into your Gmail, like my personal favorite, Google Reader. Google already allows you to add gadgets to your sidebar, but this plug-in will give you full access to your favorite Google apps in collapsible groups.

To get started you must have Firefox installed. If for some bizarre reason you do not have Firefox installed, it’s imperative that you install this web browser now, use it, and never, ever look back.

Then grab a copy of Integrated Gmail. And fall in love with your Gmail all over again.

An article on Wikipedia lists locations of satellite images that are censored on Google Maps. It also includes links for the coordinates to be viewed in Google Maps. Some of these locations are concealed for obvious reasons, being military related. Interesting, nonetheless.

I might be dropping Who Needs Oxygen.net in place of a new name. I impulsively purchased two new domains the other day, but I’m still feeling a bit indecisive. My two new choices for my blog title and domain are: alpha-geek.net or ilovetheinternets.com. AlphaGeek.whatever is taken in almost every variation you can think of, fortunately, no active blogs under those domains, so I grabbed alpha-geek.net. I bought iLovetheInternets.com because, well, because it’s just funny.

I’m leaning more towards alpha-geek.net, but I don’t know. I’m still going to keep whoneedsoxygen.net, but it will no longer be my blog’s name. I just can’t decide…

Here are some of my favorite Google Maps Mash-ups for this week:

A World of Nirvana! This is awesome! Combining YouTube videos and Google Maps, you can revisit the journey of Nirvana from 1987 to 1994.

Who Is Sick - Keep track of colds, the flu, and other ailments in your city. This came in handy, since I caught a cold this week. I thought I was the only weirdo with a cold in Spring. As it turns out, there are other weirdos with colds in Spring.

Health Map - The common cold can be a little boring. Here’s a map keeping track of diseases, globally. I no longer feel weird about my cold in spring. I mean, I could have Dysentery in Spring. (Not safe for hypochondriacs)

Hotspotr - Find wi-fi hotspots in your area. You can view rate each listing for things such as wireless quality, food, outlet availability, etc.

US Incident Map - This map displays recent incidents involving police, highway patrol, etc. You can view right down to your local zip.