Hacked Firmware

Nothing is ever to be left as it came from the factory. The whole point of being in IT is predicated on the fact that we're here to TAME and IMPROVE technology. If not break it and buy a replacement on eBay and then posting about what you learned. Therefore, whatever we use, buy, or even borrow (you know you do this, you bircked your mom's RAZR) we update the firmware to the latest rev at the very least but more often, we go out looking for upgraded hacked firmware to properly mod it.

The first one that gets hit is the DVD player. Instant region-free hack and codec support. That goes without saying. Then some upconversion options and then some AC3 tweaks. Can it play a DVD-RW DL XviD movie? Yes? Perfect. Can it play that BBC Home Video DVD of The IT Crowd? Yes? Rock on.

Now, time to jailbreak the iPhone. Not that you're going to put any apps on it that you didn't get from the Apple store or that you want to insert a Vodaphone SIM, it just has to be done. Principle? Why am I locked out of something I paid for? The legal answer is kind of obvious, you're really just licensing what you paid for, not the rest. But that argument seems to fall on a few deaf ears.

Next, take the old XBox and turn it into a media center with entirely new software then off to upgrade mom's RAZR with some new themes, and upgrade the Linksys router from a $60 device to a fully features, LINUX based router with QoS and traffic shaping.

Why take these seemingly functional, serviceable devices and turn them into twitchy devils that need constant care and feeding? I think to add life to things that would otherwise be EOL, add cool functionality that is sometimes useful or enable things that "should" have worked from the get go. But at a more existential level you may have to ask J.F. Sebastien. Sometimes we want to just be in the company of our own creations.