Where did that title come from? While waiting for a slow script to run at work, I was thinking that I’ve been spending a lot of time hacking things lately and then the term “hack it up” came to mind. Which, of course, lead me to think of the Han Solo quote “Laugh it up, fuzzball” from The Empire Strikes Back. Weird how the mind works.

I recently purchased a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRT54G]WRT54G[/url] router so that I could install [url=http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page]DD-WRT[/url] and have a bit more control over our home network and internet connection. The earlier versions of this router come with more memory and are more easily upgraded, but they fetch a pretty penny on eBay. I finally found one locally on Craigslist for $25! The firmware upgrade went smoothly and we were up and running in no time. Check out the [url=http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page]DD-WRT[/url] site for more information about what you can do with this. I particularly like the static DHCP assignments and QOS stuff – although I have yet to mess around with that very much.

Since this went so well, I decided I would try the XBox Media Center stuff I had seen on [url=http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/transform-your-classic-xbox-into-a-killer-media-center-299809.php]Lifehacker[/url]. Once again, I found a relatively inexpensive chipmod’d Xbox on Craigslist and picked it up. The seller had graciously installed a larger hard drive and left a bunch of movies and games on there! I’m in the midst of updating the chip BIOS, the XBMC version and getting the whole thing connected to my home network. I’ll keep updates coming on how it’s going.