if you can get it for free its not worth buyin ^.^
step one, making the cable, get a breakaway cable and cut off the end that plugs into the xbox, do the same with a USB cord making sure to KEEP the part that plugs into your computer, splice all the wires that have a matching color, USB has red, white, green, black, xbox has red, green, white, black, and yellow, dont worry about the yellow, burn it for all we care, my advice for stripping though, use a lighter, other wise its a pain.
step two, getting the software, go the the codejunkies website, go to support, under action replay you should see XBOX, and under downloads click update to latest version etc. click it, download it, make sure you remember where it save the stuff to, most likely it will be in C>Programs files>Datel>Action Replay XBOX.
make sure your splice has no shorts at all or it will fail,
connect the controller the the breakaway cable, plug the USB into the computer, make sure the the mem card (any will do) is in the controller, it will ask to find drivers, click which ever one it says that allows you to find your own drivers, go to C>Programs files>Datel>Action Replay XBOX>Drivers>XBreader. there you go your all set, and it will do this automatically everytime you hook up the controller, this works with winXP, win2K, and vista. i havent tried it with any linux's at all, i dont think it would work anyway. but there you go your all set. this should only set you back at most $20 usd. 5 for the cable and whatever else for whichever sized mem card you get. better then spending $44 for the official stuff