Pay lot of attention when purchasing a Nintendo DS videogame on Internet, eBay in particular... if the price is too good to be true, it's most likely a fraud.
The general advice is that everything that comes from china/hongkong is fake, that is, is a pirated version of the game built in mocked up ds cartrige. While it is true that 99% of what comes from those places is fake, importers can bring faked games worldwide, so geographic scanning is a no go.
There are ways to tell if a gamecard is fake (http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/DS/feature.asp?c=2191) but untill the game is arrived you have no way to determine it.
Well no more, thanks to the DSi!
In fact the dsi has shrunk a little its slot, so that good games can enter, but fake ones cannot!
So every fake ds game on ebay will have "for DS/DSL but not DSi"
GOTCHA! IF YOU SEE THAT WARNING STAY AWAY FROM THAT AUCTION
Vittorio
Showing posts with label Nintendo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nintendo. Show all posts
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Monday, 20 July 2009
what do phone assistance lines have against me???
I don't know, maybe I sound rude on the phone, or maybe i just have bad luck, but every time I have to deal with phone lines for assistance I never get what i want, or i have to wait indefinetely for very simple tasks!
let me show you three examples from my life, one ended, one in couse and one future
Nintendo Odissey
one of my Wiimotes breaks down and i send it for repairs under warranty; they misteriously lost a SIGNED package and refuse to give it back to me! I spent on the phone almost as twice as the value of a brand new Wiimote because I called Nintendo assistance almost 3 times a week for a WHOLE YEAR!!! They claimed that their lab never received anything and most likely i wasn't worth a repair... i ended up mailing the consumer defence association and the repair company directly begging for my poor wiimote...
in the end they sent it back without saying anything or being sorry
The missing bite
i sent my first gen aluminium iMac for a check up and for a silly problem they switched me to a more noisy second generation iMac... this is almost my fault but the funny part begins with the refund for the AppleCare on that iMac: since a couple of years in Europe you just need a (very long) single code to send money between banks and this has simplified things a lot! However, assistance wanted a further code (the SWIFT or BIC) that i didn't have, but actually i didn't want to give because there's no real need for it! What really set me angry is that they asked me for it only after three months after request for refund! Couldn't they tell me they needed it right away???
in the end i found the code, email them, but the person charge for handling my refund moved department, so i have to return to level 1 support (which mean more time waste to get what i want)
Click and run
i subscribed for a deagostini course and every month had to pay a given sum; after some time i didn't like the course any more and thought that by not paying they'd stop sending me useless stuff. That was very dumb of me, because i ended up in having to pay other three issues... I was even dumber in believing that paying all three in a single solution (instead of three single payments) would save me time, but it appears that they haven't found my money order in their records! So now i have to send the receipt by fax and hope for the best
Conclusion
well they're all very silly problems and nothing i should really worry about, but these events tend to rise your need of daily blood in general, as temptation to kill is maximum when you end the call. You can see how near to the solution but are forced to stay away from it for very stupid problems; and when you win your case, you always feel a bitter taste for all the time you've wasted!
PS
i'm posting here all the details i was able to gather about my nintendo case! I hope they might be useful if they someone gets in similar problems
Have a nice summer :)
Vittorio
let me show you three examples from my life, one ended, one in couse and one future
Nintendo Odissey
one of my Wiimotes breaks down and i send it for repairs under warranty; they misteriously lost a SIGNED package and refuse to give it back to me! I spent on the phone almost as twice as the value of a brand new Wiimote because I called Nintendo assistance almost 3 times a week for a WHOLE YEAR!!! They claimed that their lab never received anything and most likely i wasn't worth a repair... i ended up mailing the consumer defence association and the repair company directly begging for my poor wiimote...
in the end they sent it back without saying anything or being sorry
The missing bite
i sent my first gen aluminium iMac for a check up and for a silly problem they switched me to a more noisy second generation iMac... this is almost my fault but the funny part begins with the refund for the AppleCare on that iMac: since a couple of years in Europe you just need a (very long) single code to send money between banks and this has simplified things a lot! However, assistance wanted a further code (the SWIFT or BIC) that i didn't have, but actually i didn't want to give because there's no real need for it! What really set me angry is that they asked me for it only after three months after request for refund! Couldn't they tell me they needed it right away???
in the end i found the code, email them, but the person charge for handling my refund moved department, so i have to return to level 1 support (which mean more time waste to get what i want)
Click and run
i subscribed for a deagostini course and every month had to pay a given sum; after some time i didn't like the course any more and thought that by not paying they'd stop sending me useless stuff. That was very dumb of me, because i ended up in having to pay other three issues... I was even dumber in believing that paying all three in a single solution (instead of three single payments) would save me time, but it appears that they haven't found my money order in their records! So now i have to send the receipt by fax and hope for the best
Conclusion
well they're all very silly problems and nothing i should really worry about, but these events tend to rise your need of daily blood in general, as temptation to kill is maximum when you end the call. You can see how near to the solution but are forced to stay away from it for very stupid problems; and when you win your case, you always feel a bitter taste for all the time you've wasted!
PS
i'm posting here all the details i was able to gather about my nintendo case! I hope they might be useful if they someone gets in similar problems
servicetrade -- via palù, 36040 grumolo delle abbadesse (VI)PPS
fax: 0444 263520 / 0444 263540
tel: 0444 263511 / 0444 263544
mail: info@stitaly.it
person in charge: margaret / EMTS
links: http://www.stitaly.it/ http://www.emtscenter.it/azienda/contatti.asp?lingua=it
nintendo info: 199191199
nintendi service: 199309067
Have a nice summer :)
Vittorio
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Peer guardian 2 and Nintendo WFC
while in christmas holidays i had time to play with the Nintendo WFC!
I set up my mac airport, share the network connection and configure the dhcp (actually this was the most difficult part)
It didn't work! the AP was found and everything but i continuously got disconnected!
And the wifi was working as i tested the connection with programs like SvSIP (fantastic) and DSorganize browser
Then i remember that i'm behind a gateway in which is installed peer guardian 2 (privacy is important) and that poor guy is blocking the outgoing connections!
Apart from discovering that the WFC service make numerous connections to foreing server, like
GameSpy (nomina sunt consequentia rerum)
IGN Entertainment
Nintendo Of America Inc (well, that's ok)
and a couple of others, all this connections are required for the WFC to work, and so we have to allow them!
the problem is that nintendo servers are quite a lot! luckily there's this one guy, "fakhir" from the Phoenix Labs, who took the list of all the nintendo services and put it in one file, updated as soon as new servers are discovered
you have to add this url: http://mirror.thesynapse.org/phoenixlabs/lists/nintendo.php
into the Allow list and things will start working!
actually for me it didn't work completely, because i had to add a range of ip server from ign (from 207.38.8.28 to 207.38.11.11), but I'm sure they'll get them added in the list quite soon!
happy new year btw :)
I set up my mac airport, share the network connection and configure the dhcp (actually this was the most difficult part)
It didn't work! the AP was found and everything but i continuously got disconnected!
And the wifi was working as i tested the connection with programs like SvSIP (fantastic) and DSorganize browser
Then i remember that i'm behind a gateway in which is installed peer guardian 2 (privacy is important) and that poor guy is blocking the outgoing connections!
Apart from discovering that the WFC service make numerous connections to foreing server, like
GameSpy (nomina sunt consequentia rerum)
IGN Entertainment
Nintendo Of America Inc (well, that's ok)
and a couple of others, all this connections are required for the WFC to work, and so we have to allow them!
the problem is that nintendo servers are quite a lot! luckily there's this one guy, "fakhir" from the Phoenix Labs, who took the list of all the nintendo services and put it in one file, updated as soon as new servers are discovered
you have to add this url: http://mirror.thesynapse.org/phoenixlabs/lists/nintendo.php
into the Allow list and things will start working!
actually for me it didn't work completely, because i had to add a range of ip server from ign (from 207.38.8.28 to 207.38.11.11), but I'm sure they'll get them added in the list quite soon!
happy new year btw :)
Sunday, 17 June 2007
Yet another Linux embedded device
a few days ago a nice shiny Netgear WGT634U Router arrived to my place and happily started toying with it right away! Though not on sale anymore, it has very good features, like 108Mb/s wireless and a USB port for external hd.
So, i booted it up and tested with the DS and the WII (as I mainly bought this router for its complete compatibility with Nintendo devices) and they were doing really fine! No encryption (just mac filtering) due to the poor DS security system. Anyway this router also proved a nice range and no lags! good! It was time to check its other options!
Unfortunately there were the usual silver linings! I tested the usb capability with my external usb drive, ntfs formatted - no writing allowed - it was readonly... so, since "linux partition" were supported i tried formatting it in xfs, reiserfs, ext3; noone showed up! cool!
Moreover when I tried to upgrade to the latest firmware the connection was refused and the old firmware kept!
Finally, what turned really me down was that there was no NFS support, but just a plain Samba server! ugly!!!
So these three convinced me to try linux on this router! there were two main options: OpenWRT and OpenWGT! The latter should be dedicated for this router, WGT634U, but it's not really developed any more; so i tried the former, which has a wider support for routers of all kind!
OpenWRT has two main release: White Russian, stable branch, and Kamikaze, development branch. These two version differ mainly on the configuration method! With Russian you have to play with the nice nvram command, with Kamikaze you can swiftly modify files in /etc to change configuration. Kamikaze was the only to support my router so I had very little choice.
That's it! I put it on the router! Wow! What has changed? mmm let's see the web interface! what? no web interface? well, let's try ssh! password required? what password?
ok the panic ended when I tried by chance to access with telnet! I set up a password and ssh was activated! I was really annoyed that there wasn't a web interface but i was soon proved wrong.
On the ssh consolle, it was like any other linux system, with all the most important commands!
After a while i found this little uselful program, ipkg, which acts exactly as apt-get!
With ipkg you can install any program available on the official repositories! And there are a lot! Kernel moduls, servers of any kind (cups, nfs, samba, ftp) along the normal stuff you find on routers (dhcp, firewall, wireless).
Later on, i also found out that there was actually a web interface, not included in the repositories as still in development, called webif (already installed in White Russian) which you can download from the openWRT site. It was really nice, but it was evident that it need much development (still usable though).
Then I wanted to try out the USB expansion port! I read you could use it not only as external hd, but with any usb device compatible in linux! So you could easily plug a hub and have nfs server, bluetooth device, print server and much more! I made some attemps at building a print server, but the wiki are only for White Russian, so the method provided didn't work (actually there was no /dev/usb/lp0, but if you create the node with mkdir -p /dev/usb && mknod /dev/usb/lp0 c 180 0 it has been reported to work)
However i wasn't happy enough! It was cool having linux on the router but it was too bleeding edge and having Kamikaze didn't help! I was unsure whether to put a plain White Russian or back the original firmware! Since i tought my router was not supported i opted for the second!
And since i wasn't sure if the suggested method worked, i did so using the most unstable web interface!
Erasing linux...
this was the last output i would ever receive from this router! Yep, i bricked it! I could try to repair it with a serial cable but it's too much of a hassle, and so i decided to ask the vendor if they can replace it!
summing up! Linux on the router is nice, but you need to have an advanced level of linux knowledge, and be ready not to come back! If you have enough time to play with it though i would suggest giving a try to it anyway, as long as you don't want to put the original firmware back :-D
So, i booted it up and tested with the DS and the WII (as I mainly bought this router for its complete compatibility with Nintendo devices) and they were doing really fine! No encryption (just mac filtering) due to the poor DS security system. Anyway this router also proved a nice range and no lags! good! It was time to check its other options!
Unfortunately there were the usual silver linings! I tested the usb capability with my external usb drive, ntfs formatted - no writing allowed - it was readonly... so, since "linux partition" were supported i tried formatting it in xfs, reiserfs, ext3; noone showed up! cool!
Moreover when I tried to upgrade to the latest firmware the connection was refused and the old firmware kept!
Finally, what turned really me down was that there was no NFS support, but just a plain Samba server! ugly!!!
So these three convinced me to try linux on this router! there were two main options: OpenWRT and OpenWGT! The latter should be dedicated for this router, WGT634U, but it's not really developed any more; so i tried the former, which has a wider support for routers of all kind!
OpenWRT has two main release: White Russian, stable branch, and Kamikaze, development branch. These two version differ mainly on the configuration method! With Russian you have to play with the nice nvram command, with Kamikaze you can swiftly modify files in /etc to change configuration. Kamikaze was the only to support my router so I had very little choice.
That's it! I put it on the router! Wow! What has changed? mmm let's see the web interface! what? no web interface? well, let's try ssh! password required? what password?
ok the panic ended when I tried by chance to access with telnet! I set up a password and ssh was activated! I was really annoyed that there wasn't a web interface but i was soon proved wrong.
On the ssh consolle, it was like any other linux system, with all the most important commands!
After a while i found this little uselful program, ipkg, which acts exactly as apt-get!
With ipkg you can install any program available on the official repositories! And there are a lot! Kernel moduls, servers of any kind (cups, nfs, samba, ftp) along the normal stuff you find on routers (dhcp, firewall, wireless).
Later on, i also found out that there was actually a web interface, not included in the repositories as still in development, called webif (already installed in White Russian) which you can download from the openWRT site. It was really nice, but it was evident that it need much development (still usable though).
Then I wanted to try out the USB expansion port! I read you could use it not only as external hd, but with any usb device compatible in linux! So you could easily plug a hub and have nfs server, bluetooth device, print server and much more! I made some attemps at building a print server, but the wiki are only for White Russian, so the method provided didn't work (actually there was no /dev/usb/lp0, but if you create the node with mkdir -p /dev/usb && mknod /dev/usb/lp0 c 180 0 it has been reported to work)
However i wasn't happy enough! It was cool having linux on the router but it was too bleeding edge and having Kamikaze didn't help! I was unsure whether to put a plain White Russian or back the original firmware! Since i tought my router was not supported i opted for the second!
And since i wasn't sure if the suggested method worked, i did so using the most unstable web interface!
Erasing linux...
this was the last output i would ever receive from this router! Yep, i bricked it! I could try to repair it with a serial cable but it's too much of a hassle, and so i decided to ask the vendor if they can replace it!
summing up! Linux on the router is nice, but you need to have an advanced level of linux knowledge, and be ready not to come back! If you have enough time to play with it though i would suggest giving a try to it anyway, as long as you don't want to put the original firmware back :-D
Monday, 4 June 2007
Don't FlashMe - a Nintendo DS story
I always told never to flash your Nintendo DS.
It is useless, you run into too many risks, the warranty is voided and so on...
HOWEVER
I wanted to try! I was too curious about how to do it, and wanted to try myself the (very few actually) features it enabled, especially the direct boot, as the SuperKey was driving me crazy for not being detected from time to time.
So I took courage and downloaded the FlashMe v8 from the FlashMe Official Site!
I read some guides over the internet, this one in particular, but I already had problems just find the toothpick and the tin foil, but that's because my house is a mess right now!
Anyways, I somehow created that thing and stuck into the DS, so the flashing begun... everything was ok...
halt!
at 26% the DS turned off.
ok, no panic, maybe it finished so quickly that it already shut down... no it was not! Black screen if you tried to turn it on!
ok, no panic, no panic, gasp, breathe, no panic, breathe, breathe... ok air pressure stabilized
what was written on the guide? if your DS shuts down during flashing you just have to go into the recovery mode by holding Start and Select (I also pressed A and B just to be safe). So I did and I was welcomed by a charming SuperCard intro!
I resumed the flashing and completed it without no further problems...
Now I've got it running on my DS and already miss the Nintendo DS welcome screen (as well as
the suspend option)... I guess that if I had a slot1 device I would never and NEVER install a FlashMe firmware, as the advantages are way too limited...
It is useless, you run into too many risks, the warranty is voided and so on...
HOWEVER
I wanted to try! I was too curious about how to do it, and wanted to try myself the (very few actually) features it enabled, especially the direct boot, as the SuperKey was driving me crazy for not being detected from time to time.
So I took courage and downloaded the FlashMe v8 from the FlashMe Official Site!
I read some guides over the internet, this one in particular, but I already had problems just find the toothpick and the tin foil, but that's because my house is a mess right now!
Anyways, I somehow created that thing and stuck into the DS, so the flashing begun... everything was ok...
halt!
at 26% the DS turned off.
ok, no panic, maybe it finished so quickly that it already shut down... no it was not! Black screen if you tried to turn it on!
ok, no panic, no panic, gasp, breathe, no panic, breathe, breathe... ok air pressure stabilized
what was written on the guide? if your DS shuts down during flashing you just have to go into the recovery mode by holding Start and Select (I also pressed A and B just to be safe). So I did and I was welcomed by a charming SuperCard intro!
I resumed the flashing and completed it without no further problems...
Now I've got it running on my DS and already miss the Nintendo DS welcome screen (as well as
the suspend option)... I guess that if I had a slot1 device I would never and NEVER install a FlashMe firmware, as the advantages are way too limited...
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Catching up...
Well, this the real first post of the blog, so I think I'd better begin with what I've done till now and what I'm about to do!
Right now I'm studying Computer Engineering at the Politecnico in Turin and as you could guess I'm fond of anything related to Informatics and Technology!
I also have other interests like Cinema and Filmmaking, Photography and Videogames.
I mentioned fimmaking and photography because I actually like to make both: you can see my photogallery in DeviantArt and my short movies on YouTube (links are in the sidebar).
If you wish to watch my short go here.
As for the videogames I'm a Nintendo consumer since I have almost all their consolles like the DS Lite or the Wii (the GBA only is missing); I just love its videogames and its continuous innovation!
One last thing about computers, I'm a real supporter of the OpenSource (and Linux) world! All the projects you'll find here are under a GNU/GPL licence, so that you can use and distribute them as you like (and if you quote the author, he'll be very happy)!
I think that's all for now :)
Bye and thanks for stopping by
Vittorio
Right now I'm studying Computer Engineering at the Politecnico in Turin and as you could guess I'm fond of anything related to Informatics and Technology!
I also have other interests like Cinema and Filmmaking, Photography and Videogames.
I mentioned fimmaking and photography because I actually like to make both: you can see my photogallery in DeviantArt and my short movies on YouTube (links are in the sidebar).
If you wish to watch my short go here.
As for the videogames I'm a Nintendo consumer since I have almost all their consolles like the DS Lite or the Wii (the GBA only is missing); I just love its videogames and its continuous innovation!
One last thing about computers, I'm a real supporter of the OpenSource (and Linux) world! All the projects you'll find here are under a GNU/GPL licence, so that you can use and distribute them as you like (and if you quote the author, he'll be very happy)!
I think that's all for now :)
Bye and thanks for stopping by
Vittorio
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