PC owners with the MythTV home entertainment app hooked up may want to take a gander. GrizzlyAdams over at his boards has just announced the release of MythRemote v 0.1.1 for your DS, which turns your portable into a remote for MythTV frontends. As for the controls and features, according to GrizzlyAdams:

controls:

• DPAD - Navigation
• A - Select
• B - Back
• X - Vol +
• Y - Vol -

Features:

• Automatic LCD backlight off.
• Three pages of touchscreen buttons.
• Network update (upload a new .nds using netcat)
• Support for latest DSLite wifi hardware (using DSWiFi CVS)
• Return to menu (libCartReset)
• Three Frontend IP Configurations (configurable at runtime)

Future plans:

• LCD backlight fade
• Customizable touchscreen panels & button mapping
• Autoconnect (Connect to Frontend 1 at startup)
• Skinnable GUI
• MythTV Status Polling
• Automatic sleep & poweroff
• Automatic updates (off by default)

Grizzly also notes that v 01.1 should take care of the LCD bug in the main menu, as well as fix the IP Config input bug. We advise the guys to view the readme included in the bundle for the full details on this app. Or, if you need a blow-by-blow guide for the installation, click on the read link. Enjoy the app.

Download: [MythRemote v0.1.1]

Too much gaming, as you all know by now, is bad, bad, bad for you. Video games are particularly hard on the eyes. According to an article by Andrew Bermam in Tech Zone, "Flash graphics, rapid-fire movements, and long hours at the console result in health problems like muscle and eye strain. Common ailments resulting from gaming are: lateral epicondylitis, tendonitis, bursitis, and carpel tunnel syndrome among others."

Among others? You mean there's more? If that didn't scare you, you must already be numb and cross-eyed from too much gaming. We posted an article called "Tips On How To Avoid 'Xbox Vision', 'Nintendonitis', And Other Gaming-Related Discomforts". We hope you didn't turn a blind eye to it!

Here are more tips to keep gaming safe, especially for your eyes.

• Blink your eyes to lubricate it. We doubt you could lose the game to blinking every now and then.
• Ask your eye doctor to prescribe artificial tears that will moisten your eyes. Or you can pull out a nose hair every now and then to make your eyes well up.
• At least 6-8 times a day, rub the palms of your hands together and press them on your eyes. Hold themthere for a few minutes. The warmth of your palms will relax the eye muscles. A warm hotpack may also do the trick if you rhands have turned into horrible claw-like things after hours of gaming.
• Greenery soothes eyes, so glance as often as you can at green trees, bushes, or plants. You can also watch the horror classic The Exorcist. Lots of green colored stuff streaming out of Linda Blair's throat there.
• Do simple Yoga eye strengthening exercises. Don't worry you don't have to sit, painfully, like a circus contortionist. Roll your eyes, focusing on your nose and then the area between your eyebrows. Shift your balls (you eyeballs, we mean, we never tire of that line) from left to right. Was that too hard?
• Get a qualified eye doctor (not your bestfriend) to check your vision and find out whether you need “computer glasses.” If you use contact lenses, doctors say take them off and use glasses instead.
• Bug your parents to buy you HDTV. Screens with sharper images and greater clarity are gentler to the eyes. If they say no, remind them that prevention of CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome) is a hundred times better than any cure after a problem occurs. Of course it could backfire, they could take away your console, instead.

Looks like devkitPro has been busy these days trying to improve on his previous applications and libraries for the DS. Now, he presents us with a new version of the devkitPro Windows Installer/Updater plus updates on the libgba and libnds libraries.

Version 1.3.4 of the devkitPro installer/updater, which allows users to selectively download and install components of the devkitPro toolchains, includes Chishm's libfat that is now integrated to the devkitPro CVS. Normally, if you already have the old version installed, it will detect this new version and update automatically because of the auto update feature. But devkitPro says there was a problem with the previous version's auto updater, hence, you'd need to download this manually (download is provided below).

Also from devkitPro today are libgba and libnds libraries updates, which brings more compatibility between the two and making coding for both platform easier. Macros from libgba have now been added to libnds and changes (most apparent of which are in the interrupt system) have been implemented on libgba. The old functions on the libgba have been replaced with the naming scheme from libnds:

• InitInterrupt replaced with irqInit
• SetInterrupt replaced with irqSet
• EnableInterrupt replaced with irqEnable
• DisableInterrupt replaced with irqDisable

Other new things for libgba are the change from IE_ to IRQ_ on all interrupt masks and input functions (ScanKeys KeysHeld KeysDown KeysUp and KeysDownRepeat) being changed to the same scheme as libnds where initial letters start with a lower case. To know more about the library changes, just browse the online documents for the new updates.

Check out these updated applications and libraries from devkitPro by clicking on the downloads below. Then feel free to leave your comments and suggestions in the comments section.

Download: [devkitPro Updater 1.3.4]
Download: [libgba 20060720 Update]
Download: [libgba 20060720 Update - Source]
Download: [libnds 20060719 Update]
Download: [libnds 20060719 Update - Source]
Download: [gba examples 20060718]

When sgstair asked for people to provide him with suggestions and any bug fixes found on his DSWifi library, seems like people listened. He's back with another DSWifi CVS update. Although the latest updates is still a small one, most of them address issues brought to his attention.

sgstair says it's time to say goodbye to the DHCP's intermittent failing and the "days of getting an IP of 0.0.0.0" with the new CVS update. As requested, he also squeezed FIONREAD support and connect() in blocking mode into this update.

The DSWifi author admits these new features are not yet well tested as he "just don’t have the time to test" them yet. So if you find any bugs with the new features, he'd deeply appreciate it if you'll let him know about them.

As was already mentioned in his last update, sgstair is looking into putting some 'real features' on the Wifi CVS. This time out, he divulges that he's planning to release a new precompiled library this coming Friday or Saturday. Wifi Library fans can expect the following to be included in the next update:

• select() support
• shared key authentication
• support for ”hidden” APs (by way of probe requests)
• lingering TCP connections on close (so they shut down properly)

...plus a few "large and small items". Let him know if you have other requested features; who knows, he might still be able to put them in the next release.

Remember Stephen Stair? You probably know him as SgStair, the guy who created a wiki to document a number of subjects he had worked on in the past and will work on in the future. Well, he's back to tell us that work is progressing on the DS Wifi library. Though it's not yet ready for a full release, Stephen has reorganized the library and added it as a module to the devkitpro sourceforge Concurrent Versions System (CVS) server.

CVS is a tool used by many software developers to manage changes within their source code tree. It stores not only the current version of a piece of source code, but a record of all changes (and who made those changes) that have occurred to that source code. Use of CVS is particularly common on projects with multiple developers, since CVS ensures changes made by one developer are not accidentally removed when another developer posts their changes to the source tree.

As some of you know, only a select few will be allowed to edit main pages but anyone is free to modify the discussion pages and provide feedback. For those who are sufficiently capable, this option will put you at the cutting edge of DS Wifi library development.

Stephen invites the chosen few: Feel free to download and compile the libraries, it’s an utterly painless process if you can get CVS to cooperate, the new build system dumps 4 output files (libdswifi7.a, libdswifi9.a, libdswifi7d.a, and libdswifi9.a - arm7 and arm9 release and debug versions respectively) into [root]/lib, and the include files you need are in [root]/include. The old lib used “libdswifi7r.a” and “libdswifi9r.a” for the release versions - the ‘r’ has been dropped for the new version.