Hey Guy's
Thanks for the replies

I was a little green around the ears etc before I started this but I have upgraded my firmware and my 360 still works!
tyuon how did your flash go?
For those who have the original firmware and have downloaded the xtreme_proper patch here is what I have done:
I had the original extreme.bin, then **obtained**

the extreme_proper.ppf patch which in-cluded ppf-o-matic.exe. I then loaded extreme.bin (original) into ppf-o-matic and loaded the xtreme_proper.ppf and then clicked apply.
This left me with the (updated) extreme.bin file (the only way to tell if the patch has been successful is to look at the date modified and that should report the file was modified the time and date you did the patch).
Once you have the updated extreme.bin you can then follow the rest of the readme to download your existing firmware, add your dvd key to the image and , then flash with your updated firmware.
I hope this helps!!!