Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Upcoming Projects

I plan on building and releasing a tutorial for building a Wii sensor bar with more IR Leds than the original, battery powered or 5V USB powered, and with a wireless on/off switch. I am simply looking around and trying to formulate a good plan to make it work properly.

In the mean time, check out this site:

Wii Save
A database of Wii save files. (I personally only tested the Red Steel, and it works perfect!)

Thats all right now, I will probably post up some more stuff as the night goes on but no promises.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

HOW-TO: Wii Shop Browser Hack With Keyboard Support

As we all know, it was a great disappointment on November 19th when we unpacked our brand-new Nintendo Wii's and found that the Internet Channel was not yet available for our use. As we wait for the actual Opera 9 based browser to be available, the Wii hacking community has already formulated several hacks using the the Wii Shop Channel to preview a very bare and minimal version of the much anticipated Wii Browser.

Requirements
Hardware
Wireless Router(802.11 a/b/g) or Nintendo WiFi USB Dongle
PC running Windows 2000/XP
Nintendo Wii Console (Duh!)

Software
Simple DNS Plus (Get it here)
Apache HTTP Server 2.2.3 (Get it here)
PHP 5.2.0 (Get it here)
Wii Browser Files (Get it here)

Tutorial
1. Install Apache HTTP Server 2.2.3. When you come to the screen where it lists 3 text boxes asking for two domains and an email address. Input 127.0.0.1 into the first two text boxes and admin@127.0.0.1 for the email.

2. Install PHP. When it asks for the server type that it will be used on, select "Apache 2.2.x". When it asks for the location of the Apache 2.2.x conf directory, browse to "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/
Apache 2.2/conf" and select OK. After installation, if a pop-up comes up asking if you would like the installer to configure your configuration files, select Yes.

3. After you have installed Apache and PHP there should be a system tray icon. Right click this icon and select "Open Apache Monitor". Then click the "Restart" tab on the right of it and make sure that no errors pop up.

4. Now its time to install Simple DNS Plus. This is a simple installation (no pun intended). After Simple DNS Plus has installed, open it from the system tray and go to Tools --> Edit DNS Records. In the new window, go to Tools --> Quick Domain Wizard. In the Domain Name box enter "oss.shop.wii.com" and in the "Web server IP" box enter your PC's IP address. (To find your IP address, you can go to Start --> Run and from there type cmd, a command prompt box will pop up, enter in ipconfig. Your IP address will be listed, most likely in a 192.168.x.x form). Delete anything in any other fields and press OK.

*Optional* On the Simply DNS Plus main screen you may want to go to Tools --> Options and click on the DNS tab so it unfolds and select "Requests" and then mark the circle next to "All Local IP addresses" and then on the "Recursion" tab mark the circle next to "Perform DNS Recursion" and "For Everyone". Then click OK.

5. Now open WiiBrowse.zip (Wii Browser Files) and unzip them to C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/
Apache 2.2/htdocs.

6. Now once again go to the system tray and open the Apache Monitor and select Restart.

7. Boot up your Nintendo Wii and go to Wii Options --> Wii Settings --> Go To The Second Page of Options and Click On "Internet". Now go to Connection Settings and select your main Internet Connection. Click on "Change Settings". Flip through the pages until you get to "Auto-Obtain DNS" and select "No" then click on Advanced Settings. Enter in your PC's IP address into the "Primary DNS" box. (The same IP you entered in Simply DNS Plus, the 192.168.x.x). Now save, it will perform a test connection.

8. If the connection is successful, go back to the main Wii menu and Select the Wii Shop channel. You should see a white page that says "Wii Shop Channel" and then you have successfully bypassed the actual Shop page and made a connection to the internet.

*Optional* Ghostless has made a gateway to Google you can use that features a back/forward button. Simply do the following.

Browse to C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache 2.2/htdocs and open up CheckRegistered.html in a text editor or HTML editor and find the line that says:
top.location = '/proxy/index.php?q=google.com&hl=0011100001';
and simply replace it with
top.location = '/proxy/index.php?q=http://1337.lastunicorn.info/wii/&hl=0011100001';
now save and restart your Apache server.

THANK YOU TO MASTERSPY7 FROM THE FEELTHISSITE.COM WII FORUMS. THANK YOU TO GHOSTLESS FOR THE PORTAL PAGE. THANK YOU FOR ANYBODY DESERVING OF CREDIT FOR THIS DISCOVERY. CONTACT ME FOR CREDIT AT WII@NATHANIX.COM.