Help a noob to PSX

[jessenj]

I have been a long time modder and console hacker, starting with Xbox, PS2, GB, DS, Wii and PSP, and my wife is getting me a PS3 for Christmas, which I've never taken a stab at. I looked at the forums after joining, but there is a STAGGERING amount of threads to try to find a few simple answer, so maybe one of you veterans can point me in the right direction.

I'm looking to do the following:

1. Take a new PS3 Slim and mod it to play game images from HDD
2. Give me media streaming from Windows Shares (CIFS/SAMBA) like the old school XBMC without PC transcoding
3. Allow me to run homebrew
4. Preferably no soldering

Can someone give me a few links or pointers on where to begin? I see lots of USB dongle discussions, but I don't know what's the best one to get, and is there a way to make one myself with a simple thumb drive and an image, or is there something special about the dongles that allows the PS3 to be opened up?

Also, if you have an opinion of what's the best of the best, I'm all ears. I don't want a big flame thread, but just a "hey, this is easiest and works for me for most of what's out there" kinda response.

Thanks again and I'm glad to be jumping on the PS3 bandwagon.

Jesse

[indirect76]

A brand new PS3 will likely be one of the new 'unhackable' units that started shipping in May. Even if you got your hand on an older (hackable) model, then you would still have to deal witht the possibility that it has firmware version 3.56 or above. If it does then you would need to do some soldering to downgrade the firmware to 3.55 in order to hack it.

There is rumor of a 3.7 firmware hack coming, but I don't put much hope in it. Sony released firmware 3.6 in March 2011 and it's held strong since.

[barelynotlegal]

you can get a move bundle, have still seem them around, its a slim..got mine about 6 months ago, brand new.. 3.41 OFW just make sure its the silver box(i think)