Happy New Year - Neat Nintendo 3ds/2ds CFW features + Disgaea !

    I don't have much to write about 2023 other than a few personal things not proceeding quickly enough in my life, but I am making progress. I will dedicate myself, that is a statement of faith and action. "You move on from here" ~ Walter White, BB minisode 2

    For now, I just wanted to share a few things I found interesting if you happen to have a custom firmware 2ds/3ds. Firstly, since Nintendo has always been known to double down on copyright/piracy related features of their brands/franchises, efforts have been made to counteract those company decisions.

    With Nintendo's Wii U and 3ds Eshop discontinuation [Source], I thought I'd share an alternative since FreeShop (pirate Eshop) had been banned back in 2018 apparently. It should be noted there apparently is a way of avoiding getting banned from your 3ds (mainly involving not including using a CFW app on your "favourite game" option on your friends profile), but it seems its really unlikely you'll be in any kind of trouble from users I've heard from. 

    It's actually great Nintendo left a security measure that can be easily breached for Nintendo 3ds users to have a custom firmware installed while also having the online playability feature. An aspect of this console that is greatly superior to that of the Switch. Also apparently not even needing new hardware to unlock it (with some new methods). Just beware to always install the latest Luma update before updating your 3ds if a new update is released. (the Luma updater app doesn't seem to be working, might be discontinued, so better do it manually). There are plenty of videos about it, but basically if you see a new update prompt on your 3ds, go to the official Github Luma page first, download the newest Luma files and paste and overwrite them to the current ones in your SD,  then you may update safely. 

     Here's a tip, if you need to manually download anything to your 3ds without the luxury of a QR code directly, use an FTP app, there are plenty of them and lots of tutorials on Youtube out there as well. Android apps like FTPcafe will help you get it done without needing a computer.

    Now on the good stuff. I present to you: 

 

HSHOP

    A little preview of their Home page tells you what's up:

 

    They are a game preservation service, find anything from Games, DLCs, Updates, have a discord server for management and troubleshooting and all of their games can be downloaded in QR codes. I  haven't even told you the best part. They have their own app now, click on that "Download 3hs" link right there, open  the FBI app, scan it and voila. No more downloading .cia files to the sd card from the computer. This is unbeliavable.

 

     Also another thing I'd like to share is Theme Plaza. Really neat website, using the Homebrew Anemonae app to download the QR codes presented for each custom theme in this library is simply the easiest way to do this and I'm so thankful it exists. I shouldn't go too deep into how to do it exactly, but as always, tons of Youtube tutorials out there, if not with the already clear instrustions on the website or the app to do it yourself. If you want to change something specific from a theme, you're gonna need to download a theme editor program like the Usagi 3ds Theme Editor. Again, you're gonna need help with online how-to's for this. But basically all you additionally need is merely 2 images and a music that loops. Here's a few "Disgaea" search bar results: (Yes I'm a big Prinny/EtnaxLaharl fan)

 

 

         Had to reupload them as lower image cuz Blogger is acting weird lol

 

     Ah, one last REALLY important thing. I nearly got my 2ds XL bricked because of some thing not many people are aware of. So here is your WARNING : If you get an error message right after downloading a theme and you can't seem to be able to turn your 3ds on without leaving that error code screen, the theme is corrupted somehow (no shit) and you need to remove your SD card, boot it up, put it back in just so you can change the theme back to a normal one temporarily. No, deleting the theme folder will not fix it.

    Had to find it out the hard way as I was in the middle of the night using the Godmode9 trying to rename files here and there to get it to work. Basically what happened is in some cases, your console will not turn on without an SD card in the slot. What you have to do is basically copy the boot.firm file in the root of your SD and paste it to the "CTRL SYSNAND" directory. I don't think you can do this without a CFW feature like Godmode9, so please make sure you have it installed.

 

    Anyway, I'll be leaving now. Guess I have done the monthly blog post. God bless you all, I've been busy with some birthdays, helping out some other family deals and going to the beach. It's all a bit stressful and I easily got dissappointed in myself by getting lazy again, but we're back on track. Work, exercise, sleep, responsabilities, healthy eating...  We're slowly building new habits. Something helped clear my mind about that and it was this YT channel called Better Ideas. Please check him out if you're still also having a bit of trouble getting your life in order. Anyway, peace out!

 

 

 

Daily Improvement

My two new cats already growing up lol (2ds XL camera

)

 

 It's been two months. It's long, but it's perhaps more frequent than it's ever been lol... Let me set up goals for myself. Perhaps one post per month. It's a long time, but baby steps is the way to go, as I learn. It's a Vlog for me and I see that writing about my thoughts helps me organize my mind.

Bad news first.  A close friend of mine named Alexander has passed away recently. Unfortunately took his own life. I don't think I ever mentioned him here, but we met when we were kids back 2006 or so. When I started this blog in about 2010, I was about 11 years old, I had lost contact with him since I had just come back from the US. I reached out to him againt in around 2015. He was with us on my 2016 birthday party, we went bowling and gave him the nickname "Texas".  Long story short, him and one of my other friends along with me, were dealing with depression. That was me and Kevin (another childhood friend I probably mentioned here). Here we were in 2022, me and Kevin managing to get our lives back in track, but not Texas. He stayed behind and just got worse, despite trying to fight back, despite us trying to help him in any way shape or form.

That was the more painful things to deal with. Never before has someone so close to me perished like that, even worse going out this way. I'm keeping in touch with his mom and one of his other closest friends. A really friendly fella called Gus. We went out to a cafe together 2 days ago so we could get closer and maybe go along with a decent friendship. There are a couple things left to be resolved about this story so for now I just want to put an end to this whole story, as my friend Kevin said.

The other negative surprises were just inconvieniences. I work as an animator, so had to pay a hefty price for a 12 month Toon Boom subscription to work. It was black friday, so I had to take that chance. But I'm doing my best to save my cash... Next month won't be so pretty either, despite my automatic expenses (bills, church, personal), I promised my grandma the first thing I'd purchase was my driver's license course. (Which I don't have one yet). But I am looking foward to that.

My new job is ongoing steadily. I don't like it much but it's a way to keep going, also it pays decently well, so I'm alright. At the moment I'm making private streams and only showing it to my friends and family to keep me going with work and remain productive. Got a copyright strike for watching 5 min of  "The Fox and the Hound" during my break, but it's okay, I have a secondary channel. Plus this strike will dissappear after 3 months, then I can upload and stream again.

I recently made a well-documented rant about GIMP on Reddit.

It's just funny, that ever since I started trying to use GIMP as a kid back in 2010 or so, it's still sucky and terrible. Guess it's just the way things go for these guys and looking at the comments, it seems I'm not alone. Abridged version of my rant? Use Krita instead, it's amazing.

Overall, I'm doing better, learning to keep relationships well with people, despite their flaws and become more productive, focused and creative. I'm getting in touch with a cousin of mine, which I was rather close to, before he left off to the US. Feel like my relationship with God is improving, in the regard that I can look foward to the horizon again. Funny thing to say, despite all the chaos and seemingly world-ending phenomena around me.

 The last and best thing I'd like to add. Outside of my ordinary work, during my free time, I am slowly progressing on making my first game with a friend I made back in high school. Turns out he knows a decent amount of programming. So I'll be making the art and he'll be making the code. It's something that's also really pushing me to go through with this.

I'll leave you with my desktop wallpaper. Everytime I boot up my computer and look at it, I contemplate the bliss of my dreams. It's night and dark, but if you can find a place you can see the horizon between the sky and Earth, you will have "your head in the stars".