The basic BT Home Hub 5a is with stock firmware a locked bog standard router but if installed with the power or OpenWRT/LEDE then it’s capable of a lot more!

To do this it will require you to open up your router, solder a few wires to places and then use a serial USB cable with the help of putty (terminal program) and a few other programs to dump and inject the firmware but once done the router will be unlocked to any ISP and open to more capability.

Take a look at the OpenWRT website here for more detail.

There’s a lot of packages that can be installed and you can customise to your own needs and wishes.

My personal preference is the ability to set up a VPN which will allow you to connect to your home network when you’re out an about or away from home.

Make sure you read the how to guide fully and allow yourself enough time and patience to do.

Once done you won’t ever go back to a stock router ever!!!

The Hub 5a isn’t the only router that can be opened up to the world of OpenWRT and LEDE so take a look at their website and you might have a router that is supported.

Each router has a different method of installing the firmware on and some are more complicated than others but on the other note, there’s some routers that can be flashed with simply a usb stick.

Although the PS Vita has since been dropped by Sony there is a lot of games and homebrew available if you have a vita and its on a firmware of 3.68 or lower.

By modding the device you can add cheaper storage using a micro sd card with a psvita adaptor, dump all your “Backup” games onto it to play and also as mentioned take advantage of homebrew applications such as emulators.

There’s a lot of guides kicking around online but the one that covers all and whats needed is here which I would highly recommend.

Here’s a snipping from the site of what’s needed to start:

• Before beginning the guide, you must know the risks of Vita hacking: EVERY time you modify your system, there is always the potential for an UNRECOVERABLE brick. They’re rare, but still a possibility so make sure you follow ALL directions EXACTLY.
• This guide will work on all PS Vita, PS Vita Slim, and PS TV devices in all regions on firmwares from 1.03 to 3.68
• If everything goes according to plan, you will lose no data and end up with everything that you started with (games, PSN Account, saves, etc will be preserved).
• Keep your device plugged in and charged throughout the entire process to avoid data loss or damage from an unexpected power-off!
• The PS Vita 2000 and PS TV models are essentially identical to the original PS Vita 1000 in terms of software. All steps which say “PS Vita” also apply to other models unless otherwise specified.
• If you have a PS Vita 1000, you must also have an official Sony memory card (of any size) to follow this guide. This restriction does not apply to the PS Vita 2000 or PS TV as those devices have a built-in memory card.

This Saturday at 15:00 Newcastle take on Brighton hove albion at St James Park. The start of this season for Newcastle has been extremely tough where we’ve faced all the top flight teams and came away battered. The last game against Man United where we were 2-0 up in the first half looked an extremely promising game but all was lost once we came back out second half. Rafa changed to a defensive tactic which in my opinion should never have happened and an attacking tactic should have remained. By changing tactics we ended up allowing Man United back in the game and within no time we were drawing 2-2. Not long after this they took the lead and all was lost.

Let’s hope this Sat we can get a much needed 3 points and start climbing the table and away from the bottom.

If you’re into your films and TV series and have a spare PC hanging around that you could put to some use then how about building a PLEX server with it!

By following the link below, you can build a server running ubuntu that will, once configured, search, download and add covers to your media.

It takes a couple of hours to run through the attached tutorial but once done you can simply log in to CouchPotato or Sonarr and start adding and looking for media.

The media will automatically be sourced and then once completed, added to PLEX.

To get going or to find out more then look here.

If you’re feeling nostalgic and want to relive the games you played down the arcades where you wasted all your cash and ended up walking home or you simply want to play the old games you used to have and play on your old Atari, amstrad, commodore, SNES and so on, then read on.

All you need is a raspberry pi, a card with enough memory, a controller and an image from here

You could if you didn’t have a big enough card for the image go to the retropie site and download the basic image and add your own ROMs but if you have then I strongly recommend the preloaded link.