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The streamzap remote http://www.streamzap.com/ is a ~US$50 USB remote for windows that works with many media programs, and at least an early free version of Girder (commercial version now at http://www.promixis.com/ for US$20) was programmable and worked at least somewhat with the streamzap.

I didn't have great results with my attempts at using girder (FCEUltra wasn't responding to the function keys programmed into the remote, although it seemed to be sending the correct keycode), and girder has a steep learning curve.

The streamzap works great on its own for what I use it for.

This won't help you with a Mac, but I bought a Streamzap for my home theater PC to control Winamp and myHTPC, and plan to get one here at the office to control PowerPoint for those folks who want to walk around when they do their presentations.

It supports a lot of apps, and they're updating it all the time to improve existing supported apps and add new ones.

This may not help you with your powerbook, but it is an easy $39 solution for PowerPoint remote control.

Todd

This won't help you with a Mac, but I bought a Streamzap for my home theater PC to control Winamp and myHTPC, and plan to get one here at the office to control PowerPoint for those folks who want to walk around when they do their presentations.

It supports a lot of apps, and they're updating it all the time to improve existing supported apps and add new ones.

This may not help you with your powerbook, but it is an easy $39 solution for PowerPoint remote control.

Todd

This won't help you with a Mac, but I bought a Streamzap for my home theater PC to control Winamp and myHTPC, and plan to get one here at the office to control PowerPoint for those folks who want to walk around when they do their presentations.

It supports a lot of apps, and they're updating it all the time to improve existing supported apps and add new ones.

This may not help you with your powerbook, but it is an easy $39 solution for PowerPoint remote control.

Todd

If your solution is truly going to be used as a dedicated HTPC, a keyboard is overkill for that application. Though I'm not advocating eliminating the keyboard from the equation entirely, there are many products that get the job done withou the awkwardness of a full-sized keybaord. You should probably look at the new PC Remotes that are coming out on the market. Such as this one from Streamzap, which also happens to have open source linux drivers available.

My company www.streamzap.com does ship to as many countries as possible, but here are the many challenges we face which may explain why others just don't bother:

1. Unless you do a ton of shipping, the major carriers (UPS/Fedex/DHL/Airborne) charge about $50 USD to send a 1 lb package to most countries. What customer is willing to pay this much for S&H?

2. The only reasonably cost effective method is US Air Mail. US Air Mail does not have reasonable insurance rates (At some point I looked into tracking and/or insurance, but this brings the cost closer to the UPS/Fedex rates).

3. International packages require filling out customs forms... BY HAND (USPS claims to be beta testing a way to print these by computer, but they have been claiming this for over a year now). This costs another few $bucks$ in time for an employee (incrasing the already high S&H costs for the customer)

4. Credit card fraud
About 90% of my incidents of credit card fraud come from International orders. This is not to imply that people outside of the US are more scrupulous than Americans. I would guess most countries have a similar rate of fraud; However when you commit inter-country fraud, it's nearly impossible to find and prosecute the criminal due to the sheer costs involved.

5. Credit card companies don't give a shit about fraud because they just make the vendor of the goods ("merchant") not only refund the money charged, but they also pay an extra $20 fee just for the "trouble" we made the credit card company go through in processing the fraud claim. In other words--ALL RISK of fraud is passed on to the vendor. One indicent of fraud costs you:
a. Lost goods
b. Lost $ from S&H
c. Charges from credit card company
d. Wasted time

Even if you could tell the credit card company every detail about the criminal (where they live, IP address, real name, etc..), it means nothing to them. Why should they bother to investigate it when they can just charge the merchant all of the costs of fraud? As you can see this is a broken system. There is currently a class action suit in progress against the credit cards surrounding this. And I hope they get sued up the ass for it.

6. Customs & import taxes Many customers will end up being charged an additional tax and/or their packages will be delayed for weeks OR MONTHS by customs. Invariably the customer thinks the vendor is at fault for this and should refund their money 100%. (Tip: Don't even bother shipping to Belgium--you'll be lucky if 1% of your packages get through)

7. Accounting and shipping software is not usually set up to handle International addresses. Every country has a different way of writing addresses. And most (reasonably priced) programs don't handle them well.

Overall, it's still worth it for us to ship overseas (i.e we make more money than we lose).. but there are many challenges and frustrations, so I can see why many vendors don't bother.

Jonah
www.streamzap.com

My company www.streamzap.com does ship to as many countries as possible, but here are the many challenges we face which may explain why others just don't bother:

1. Unless you do a ton of shipping, the major carriers (UPS/Fedex/DHL/Airborne) charge about $50 USD to send a 1 lb package to most countries. What customer is willing to pay this much for S&H?

2. The only reasonably cost effective method is US Air Mail. US Air Mail does not have reasonable insurance rates (At some point I looked into tracking and/or insurance, but this brings the cost closer to the UPS/Fedex rates).

3. International packages require filling out customs forms... BY HAND (USPS claims to be beta testing a way to print these by computer, but they have been claiming this for over a year now). This costs another few $bucks$ in time for an employee (incrasing the already high S&H costs for the customer)

4. Credit card fraud
About 90% of my incidents of credit card fraud come from International orders. This is not to imply that people outside of the US are more scrupulous than Americans. I would guess most countries have a similar rate of fraud; However when you commit inter-country fraud, it's nearly impossible to find and prosecute the criminal due to the sheer costs involved.

5. Credit card companies don't give a shit about fraud because they just make the vendor of the goods ("merchant") not only refund the money charged, but they also pay an extra $20 fee just for the "trouble" we made the credit card company go through in processing the fraud claim. In other words--ALL RISK of fraud is passed on to the vendor. One indicent of fraud costs you:
a. Lost goods
b. Lost $ from S&H
c. Charges from credit card company
d. Wasted time

Even if you could tell the credit card company every detail about the criminal (where they live, IP address, real name, etc..), it means nothing to them. Why should they bother to investigate it when they can just charge the merchant all of the costs of fraud? As you can see this is a broken system. There is currently a class action suit in progress against the credit cards surrounding this. And I hope they get sued up the ass for it.

6. Customs & import taxes Many customers will end up being charged an additional tax and/or their packages will be delayed for weeks OR MONTHS by customs. Invariably the customer thinks the vendor is at fault for this and should refund their money 100%. (Tip: Don't even bother shipping to Belgium--you'll be lucky if 1% of your packages get through)

7. Accounting and shipping software is not usually set up to handle International addresses. Every country has a different way of writing addresses. And most (reasonably priced) programs don't handle them well.

Overall, it's still worth it for us to ship overseas (i.e we make more money than we lose).. but there are many challenges and frustrations, so I can see why many vendors don't bother.

Jonah
www.streamzap.com

INTERN NEEDED
My company (Streamzap) is looking for summer interns. We're located in Hood River, OR (a.k.a. "The Gorge": the outdoor sports capital of the world). The location doesn't get any better if you are a windsurfer or snowboarder.

We're looking for programmers (C++,PHP,Windows programming experience is good). We're a small but growing startup. Flex-time and a beautiful place to live over the summer are part of the package.

We like Slashdotters--Hey, you can even buy our product on ThinkGeek.com Send resumes to hr@streamzap.com

Look forward to hearing from you!

INTERN NEEDED
My company (Streamzap) is looking for summer interns. We're located in Hood River, OR (a.k.a. "The Gorge": the outdoor sports capital of the world). The location doesn't get any better if you are a windsurfer or snowboarder.

We're looking for programmers (C++,PHP,Windows programming experience is good). We're a small but growing startup. Flex-time and a beautiful place to live over the summer are part of the package.

We like Slashdotters--Hey, you can even buy our product on ThinkGeek.com Send resumes to hr@streamzap.com

Look forward to hearing from you!

M$ is just trying to get people to pay more for a new OS ("XP MCE").

Why give another $1500 to the M$ monopoly?--all I need is my Hauppage TV card and my Streamzap remote.

The overall setup is good, but the problem is the ATI remote only works with ATIs MultimediaCenter.Invariably, ATIs software will not meet everyone's needs.

A better solution would be a more general purpose remote like Streamzap's. The downside of Streamzap's is that it's IR--but in reality, do you ever need to control your PC from another room? And if so, ATI's is still limited to 30ft.

If you go with Streamzap you get a lot more compatability with all programs--HTPC, MP3, etc.. And the remote layout is much more ergonimical than the awkward ATI.

The overall setup is good, but the problem is the ATI remote only works with ATIs MultimediaCenter.Invariably, ATIs software will not meet everyone's needs.

A better solution would be a more general purpose remote like Streamzap's. The downside of Streamzap's is that it's IR--but in reality, do you ever need to control your PC from another room? And if so, ATI's is still limited to 30ft.

If you go with Streamzap you get a lot more compatability with all programs--HTPC, MP3, etc.. And the remote layout is much more ergonimical than the awkward ATI.

The diffence is this is actually useful, whereas the Cue Cat wasn't. I got one of these and I love the fact that it has REAL buttons--most of the high end universals just have a touch-screen which is USELESS in the dark.

FWIW, another great combo is to use the Harmony to control your PC. It takes another little device, a PC Remote from Streamzap which comes with a USB infrared receiver so you can remote control your MP3s.

Yep.. I just got the holy grail of the DIY solution.. "The Remote" (and there was much rejoicing).

Now I can surf my MP3 machine like one of these $1500 jobs... Sit on the couch and flip through my collection with my IR remote--no probs.

Why spend $1500 when you can spend $30 for one of these?

Agreed... You buy a dedicated box, and it's just going to be outdated in a year or two. Use your PC, and at least you can upgrate it later.

There's a sweet new infrared remote for your PC to do just that for 40 bux. Works fine for me. Plus I can do OTHER stuff besides mp3's... DVD/VCD, etc.

For $1500 bucks?? Dude.. you could have the same system on a PC for half the price--and more disk space!

Step1. Buy decent PC speakers like Creative DT's
Step2. Get a remote control for your PC
Step3. Use decent software like MusicMatch
DONE

Who do these scam arist marketers think they're fooling by slapping a PC inside a pretty box??