It's far from useless. I assume you have the dish too?
You'll need a null modem serial cable (I think that's what it's called).
Go to a site like
http://www.ultimatetesters.com/ or
http://www.dssgeeks.com/forums/ ...there are a few of them....and register, then
read the Ariza forums.
Basically, download the reprogrammer executable. Reprogram the receiver with new codes whenever the satellite companies change them. Sometimes there's a wait between the time the codes are changed and when there's a new crack for them, but generally it's not too long.
Works great for me. Plenty of ethnic channels. Porn too, but it's generally pretty lame. ;-)
