Today we are going to break open our precious PSP's once again. This time for some nice cosmetic enhancements. Right off the bat I would like to warn this is a moderately difficult modification. However with the necessary tools and some patience you will be on your way to a sweet looking PSP in no time. I see you sitting there at your PC palming your PSP as  I speak, so without further ado let's hop to it...

Supplies:

In order to perform this modification you will need a few tools and supplies. Everything should be available from Radio Shack. Just this last time when I went in they did not carry 26 Gauge Wire (AWG). I'm not sure if this is only my location or nationwide so I have specified other places to obtain parts.

Two SMT LED's (Surface Mount) - eBay
Soldering Iron and Solder - Radio Shack, Ebay, etc. (many places)
26 Gauge Wire - Sometimes marked AWG - Usually available at Radio Shack [eBay, Mouser]
Shrink Wrap / Electrical Tape
10 ohm resistor - eBay, Mouser
Drill - optional
Small Phillips and Flat Head Screwdrivers

A few items you will need [ Battery and Penny shown for size comparison]

First remove your faceplate. This is what the phillips is for so break it out and get to work. A few screws on the back (including in your battery compartment. Finally a single screw on the bottom will allow you access to the inside of your PSP. Here's the next few steps, check the image below as a guide.

1. First we need to remove the home bar assembly. This is the bottom row including Home, screen brightness etc. Find the clip on the right and use your small screwdriver to flip it up to remove the cable. Then slide your Home Bar Assembly off the LCD screen.
2. This part is a bit more tricky. Take your flat head screwdriver and place it in the square holes marked above. Then press in gently and pry the screen upwards. I unclip two on the same side [left or right] then the screen pops out easily.
3. Now that you are able to life the screen upwards you will have access to the 2 cables that connect the LCD screen to your PSP. Gently pry the larger of the two up like you did previously with the Home Bar Assembly. When you get to the smaller of the two wires carefully pull the wire out. When removing the wire make sure not to pull up on the wire, and just pull directly away from its connection.
4. Now your LCD will be completely unattached from your PSP. Place it to the side and remove the screws that are marked in the image above. There are 7 screws in total (place these to the side as well). Now you can remove the LCD mounting bracket.

Chaos, not quite. A few simple steps and you will be ready to proceed.

First you will need to remove the triggers from their spot on the top left and right of the PSP (Ok, I think we know where the triggers are). So once you have removed them now...

Its Decision Making Time!

Well folks, heres the decisive moment. You need to decide if you are going to drill into your PSP Triggers or not. I personally found it to be better in the long run however there are a few advantages and disadvantages both ways. For example, If you choose to not drill into your triggers the light emitted from your LED will be a bit more dim then it would be if you do use the drill. Drilling could also be potentially dangerous since the triggers themselves are rather small. You could also ruin your Triggers since there is a slight possibility of drilling straight through your Trigger. If you are inexperienced in certain areas theres no harm in asking someone for help. (This feels kinda like one of those pick your own adventure books.)

If you don't want to drill into your PSP Triggers click Next Page...

If you are going to drill into your PSP Triggers click Full Article...

Before you get too excited and/or have a heart attack, this is not actual homebrew on firmware 2.7. This is a flash menu created by HellsPlumber that imitates the PSP's XMB and allows you to 'launch' flash games from this, as if you are on firmware 1.5.

Here's what HellsPlumber has said about this release:

Many PSP owners enjoyed homebrew games and applications on their PSP's.But many users were either tempted into updating to play Flash or forced to update to play the latest games. I updated my PSP and after 1 week wished I hadn't.

The Flash player was a really old version so a lot of available Flash can't play, the PSP can only handle about 2mb of Flash before displaying a "not enough memory" message and because the PSP has no keyboard,most Flash games cannot be played.

This is why I made the 2.7+ Homebrew Menu.

Many flash games and applications are included with this menu, ranging from Paint to Blackjack to an alarm clock . If you want to launch flash games from a PSP XMB-like interface, then this is for you!

Hellsplumber plans to add the ability to switch between themes (Cool Blue and Dark), an Internet Toolbar so your homepage can access the Homebrew Menu, and PSP Flash Radio - an Internet radio player like PSPRadio for the next release. Keep up the good work, HellsPlumbers!

Download:[Homebrew Menu v1.0 for Firmware 2.7]

Mr.44 has updated his homebrew application, a PSP browser for 2ch which is arguably the largest Internet forum in the world. As of 2001, this forum accommodates over 10 million visitors every day and is gaining significant influence in Japanese society, the same way the traditional mass media live TV, radio, and mags have been influencing society.

What is unique about this website is its scale and management style. It has more than 600 active boards (Japanese ita) such as "Social News", "Computers", and "Cooking", making it the most comprehensive forum in Japan. Each board usually has thousands of specific threads, such as "Coming election in Tokyo: 4th vote", "P4 vs. Athlon: overheating 51 times", and "Best wheat for making Pizza: 3rd slice". Plus, one of the most distinguishing features of 2ch is the complete freedom of anonymous posting.

Anyways, Mr.44 has recently updated his app to the 2ch Browser '394' Version, three weeks after the release of the 'Bura bura' version. As always, you are free to share some constructive opinions and observations through your comments.  With that said, here's the changelog translated by QJ's very own, Jeff C.:

- Bug fix (partially)
- Can convert the address of the downloaded board list and write in the form of board_list="URL".

Download: [2ch Browser '394' Version]

TVersity Media Server is a free application that lets you manage your internet and home media by creating a personalized lineup of channels or Personal Entertainment Guide (PEG). It then serves this media to your device, overcoming limitations by doing all the necessary conversions for your media to be available anytime and anywhere for you on any device. So what it's saying is it that all you need to do is enjoy your media while it does all the work.

It can support almost any type of media as well as streaming protocol coming from your home network or the Internet, such as live and on demand Internet streams. This means that you can have access to Internet TV and radio, Podcasts, photo blogs and more. You're all set if your device supports UPnP AV/DLNA standard (TVs, DVDs, Stereo Receivers,Digital Media Adapaters/Receivers, Mobile Phones, etc.) or has a web browser like XHTML-MP or WAP 2.0 and media streaming capabilities (Mobile Phones, PDAs, the Sony PSP) or something that has an RSS reader and media streaming or downloading capabilities (Sony PSP, iTunes/iPod).

If you already have your gear of your choice (Mine is a Sony PSP, so from this point on the article will focus on how to run the application on a PSP), just crosscheck if you meet the minimum requirements to make TVersity run on it.

 Minimum System Requirements:

• Pentium III 700 Mhz or better (Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz with support for Hyper Threading is recommended)
• 128 MB of memory or more (512 MB recommended)
• 50 MB of disk space (At least 1 GB of free space is recommended for cache area of transcoded media)
• Windows XP or Windows 2000
• DirectX 9.0 or higher
• Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher
• Audio enabled on the computer running the software
• Flash version 7 for the GUI (MSIE version 6.0 required for full GUI functionality, other Flash enabled browsers such as Firefox will have most but not all of the functionality.)

Download: [TVersity Media Server]

The TVersity installation guide awaits after the jump!