Who uses a Nintendo DS for stuff other than games?

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Jonny
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22 Dec 2008, 4:01 pm

By using a flash card, it opens up all sorts of useful stuff.

I just discovered DSlibris which is an eBook reader. Its a pain though because it only accepts XHTML files. But once its converted, it great! I've always hated reading ebooks on a computer, but on a DS it is strangely enjoyable.

I also have a few music composing software for the DS so I can create music wherever I go. Korg DS, Nitrotracker come highly recommended.

You can also get cool painting programs. Unfortunately I'm no good at painting.



Chimaeran
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22 Dec 2008, 4:29 pm

I'm curious, where do you get those other programs from? The closest I've done is use mine as a calculator during class. ^_^



MADDuck
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22 Dec 2008, 4:39 pm

Good topis.
I use my PSP for music, movies, demos, SKYPE phone, internet radio, and light browsing/e-mail

You can to 90% of it on a DS too, just buy the browser cart (and memory upgrade), flashcard and do a bit of conversion work on the video files, etc..

I use handbrake on my Mac to rip and re size movies


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Deathseeker
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22 Dec 2008, 5:43 pm

i wish i knew how 2 do all that stuff, i have a PSP and DS and the most i can do is put music on my PSP, just technologically stupid i guess



MADDuck
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22 Dec 2008, 5:51 pm

Deathseeker wrote:
i wish i knew how 2 do all that stuff, i have a PSP and DS and the most i can do is put music on my PSP, just technologically stupid i guess


It's not that hard.

FIRST, make sure that you are updated:
http://www.us.playstation.com/Support/SystemUpdates

Try this:
http://www.us.playstation.com/psn/media ... detailpage

It's SONY's official media manager. It will fix videos and put stuff where it needs to be!

They don't have one for Macintosh, so I run Handbrake and manually put stuff where it needs to go, or you could run iPSP for Mac, but it's not as powerful.


And lastly, here's the direct link to SONY's official PSP frontpage:
http://www.us.playstation.com/PSP


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Deathseeker
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22 Dec 2008, 6:11 pm

i never knew this stuff existed, if not 4 ppl like u i would probly still be playing atari on a 6 inch tv, thx a ton



MADDuck
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22 Dec 2008, 6:34 pm

Deathseeker wrote:
i never knew this stuff existed, if not 4 ppl like u i would probly still be playing atari on a 6 inch tv, thx a ton


Your welcome, I'm glad I can help. Now if you want to go down a 'dark path' there are custom firmwares that change the menu and lets you run bootlegs.

Just stick to the legit official methods, and you will be very happy!!


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SabbraCadabra
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23 Dec 2008, 2:22 pm

I've got guitar tabs/chords on my DS, a guitar tuner program just came out, I have to try it.

Just tried eBook readers last night (DSReader and ReadMore). ReadMore I thought was the better of the two, but they both need a lot of work...and ReadMore definitely needs a white-on-black option so I'm not straining my eyes so much. Didn't try DSLibris, I was in a hurry and just wanted to load some TXT files.

I've got Colors! and Phidias on there, but don't use them very much...I probably should, I really don't draw very often at all anymore =/

Sometimes I listen to NES NSF music files with DSOrganize =)

Did have some TV shows on it to watch for a while, but I only have a few SD cards, so I had to wipe that one to use for something else.

I think that's about it...I mostly just use it for games (and guitar). I think a lot of other things like VOIP, IRC, stuff like that is pretty neat to play with, but not all that practical for me.


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Jonny
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23 Dec 2008, 3:04 pm

Cool! Is there a specific app for guitar tabs/chords or are you just using txt files? Is the DS mic good enough for a tuner? I have a portable Korg tuner anyway, so I can give this a miss.

I tried Readmore too, for the book view (hold DS sideways) but I found the program incredibly buggy. Sometimes cannot change font settings or sometimes books don't even load when it was fine before! DSLibris is a lot more stable, features book view and white text on black (i agree with you it is so much better for the eyes! If it wasn't for this, I would not use the DS for reading).

If you get stuck converting to XHTML, I have a pretty good process for doing it, which i can share with you.



Rain_Bird
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24 Dec 2008, 1:19 pm

I have the internet browser for the DS, so I use that when my iPod Touch runs out of power and I'm not near a computer.
I've also use the PictoChat a few times, like if the other person has their DS with them and I don't feel like texting, but also don't want everyone else around to hear what I'm saying.



SabbraCadabra
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24 Dec 2008, 2:49 pm

Jonny wrote:
Is there a specific app for guitar tabs/chords or are you just using txt files? Is the DS mic good enough for a tuner?


There's two or more apps specifically for guitar tabs, but I don't use tabs anymore, just chords, so opening a TXT file in variable width font with DSOrganize is just fine. Works best with "blah blah [Cmaj7] words" style formatting, but folk charting works pretty well sometimes too.

Apparently the tuner program is just a test right now, to see if it's possible to do a tuner. Says he's trying to make sure the timing is good enough to get accurate results, and currently it can only tune sine waves, and actual instrument support will come later. I use a program called AP Tuner for PC, but it would be nice to have something on the go, just in case.

Good call on DSLibris, BTW =) Took me quite a while to figure out how to format the XML so it wouldn't drop lines or entire pages though >_< But now it's working pretty well...just wish R and L didn't turn pages, I keep pressing them on accident.

What do you use to format them? I've been using a hex editor to replace: <br>(return)<br>(return) with: (return)</p>(return,return)<p>(return) and doing all the rest in WordPad. I don't mind using the hex editor, since it only takes a quick second, but I was thinking there must be a non-hex solution out there for the less tech-savvy.

Think I might try converting a few guitar chords to XML and seeing how I feel about it ;)


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Jonny
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24 Dec 2008, 6:52 pm

Hex editor, wow thats hardcore!

Ok here is what I do:

1) Take an eBook.

If its a PDF then I use Adobe Reader's 'Save as text' option to export to .txt. I generally look for PDFs which do not have page numbers or images in them. Images are ok since it will cut them out anyway but it can take a long time to convert to text (which is surprising since it wouldn't be hard to differentiate between an image and text). Page numbers are more annoying since they are treated as text, and its too much work to manually take them out after.

2) Convert txt to html.

I use this site - http://www.newbiehangout.com/convert/Mt2h.cgi

Just dump all the text and then convert. No need to change any of those options. It will automatically put in <br> where there are blank lines.

3) Copy the formatted HTML code to a new file.

4) Convert HTML to XHTML (not sure if this is actually necessary, but it doesn't take long)

I use Simpletidy http://www.tsnetsoft.com/software.htm (freeware)

Simply load the above file and hit the Tidy button and a second later its done.

5) Within Simpletidy, I go to View | Word Wrap.

6) Finally, save as .XHT file

Thats it! Seems long but when you actually do it, its just a few minutes. Most important thing for me is finding a well formatted eBook in its source file.

Hope that helps.

------------------------------

Seems a few people here surf the net on the DS, hows the speed? And do you see all graphics, layout?

Haven't tried Wifi yet, as I don't really want to switch from WPA to WEP.



MADDuck
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24 Dec 2008, 6:55 pm

Did you look in the project Getenburg website?
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page ... 69e56e2129

They have TONS of e-books there, and they are in .txt to start with!! !


Have fun!


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Jonny
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25 Dec 2008, 10:46 am

Yup, I'm well aware of that site. Awesome site, but everything is public domain stuff. So sometimes I want to read more current books.



MADDuck
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25 Dec 2008, 2:40 pm

oh okay.


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SabbraCadabra
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27 Dec 2008, 12:25 am

Weird, I couldn't get <BR> to actually do anything at all in DSLibris...


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