Universal remotes are great devices which simplify the control of home entertainment devices. They cut down the pile of remotes to one single remote, removing the need to use multiple remotes to do a simple task like watching TV. This also clears up space on the coffee table so that it can be used for better stuff like.. umm coffee.

While making life easier for the person who set up the remote, other family members or friends may become confused by it. All it takes when pressing the remote buttons is for a cat to walk by, or a coffee table in the way of the infra red signal to go walkabouts. There could also be configuration problems where the universal remote isn’t completely compatible with a device. This may result in some buttons needing to be inputed manually.

While the remote works correctly most of the time, when something does go wrong, my wife has no idea what buttons to press to get things up and running. Why should she need to know the inner workings of something that I set up? I continually tried to make minor adjustments to the remote configuration, and even rewired the equipment at one stage, to make life a little easier for her. In the end, there was only one solution.

I put together a cheat sheet for my wife so that she can do her own fault finding. The cheat sheet lists what devices need to be on for a certain activity, and what setting each device needs to be on. Using this list, she can look on the front panel of each device and figure out where the problem is. There are also additional notes describing what may go wrong, and how to rectify it.

I tested it out on my wife and the results were much better than anything else I had come up with. Feel free to download it here and alter it, or create your own. It isn’t a complicated document, but I hope it will save my wife from any continued frustration.

Have you ever wanted to control your computer with a game controller? It could be convenient to use a game controller from the couch to control Windows Media Center or move through PowerPoint slides.

JoytoKey is a small program that allows you to setup the movement controls and buttons of a game controller, into emulated keystrokes and mouse movements. You can setup different profiles for different programs and games, as well as separate configurations for different controllers. You can even configure a button on the controller represent a key combination.

This program is useful in the case where games don’t offer any game controller support, or where some newer games don’t offer support for older controllers, especially where drivers haven’t been updated over the years. JoytoKey allows you to split the axis controls into two separate buttons.

For example; if you have a first person shooter game that does not currently support a game controller, you can setup a profile for your controller to work with the game. Each button will represent a key from from your keyboard. Once all the buttons are configured, you have effectively added game controller support for your game.

Read more and download your free copy from electracode.

If you would like to control your mouse cursor only with your controller, check out this article for a simple alternative.

When I first played with Vista, I found the sidebar to be an annoyance which took up valuable desktop property. As time has gone on, I am using it more and more. This is mostly because there are a lot more worthwhile gadgets available than when I first started using it. It is now becoming quite useful to have.

Logitech has a new range of Vista Sidebar Gadgets available from their website. All of the Gadgets mentioned here can also be used as Yahoo! Widgets. Each of these tools are related to keyboards. Best of all, you don’t need a Logitech keyboard for them to work. I am using a Microsoft cordless keyboard and all of the gadgets worked fine.

Key Lock Status Gadget: Cordless keyboards generally don’t have LEDs in them to tell you when your num/caps/scroll locks are active or inactive. This is often the job of the receiver. You are able to get software that shows a popup on your screen, but these fade away, clog up the tasktray or look really ugly.

This gadget from Logitech sits in your sidebar and shows you the state of your keyboard. The response time is a little slow (around 1 second) but it looks nice and is always visible.

If you like that, it’s just the beginning of what Logitech has for us…

Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t have a webcam, and I don’t really intend on ever buying one. Occasionally there are times that others have requested that I get one, but I can’t justify the purchase.

Most phones these days have cameras built in, so wouldn’t it be great if we could use the phones we already have as our webcam.

SmartCam answers the call. SmartCam fools your computer into seeing your smartphones camera as a webcam. A Windows client and a mobile client both need to be installed for it to operate. SmartCam works with MSN messenger, Skype, as well as a straight forward capture to file.

While this all sounds very good, being a SourceForge hosted project that is still very young, SmartCam has some limitations. It only works over Bluetooth, which is exactly what I wanted, but it may limit some users. It is designed for Symbian S60, Series 2 & 3 devices, although it does run on a Java platform; so it may work on other devices.

SmartCam worked for me on a Nokia N70. I had no success with Windows Mobile, however it has not been designed to run on this platform as yet. It was designed for XP, and I had no problems running SmartCam in Vista.

It is a little fiddly to get up and running. The mobile versions need to be installed from the Windows installation folder. Once you read the Read Me file, and get the hang of how it works, you should be fine. SmartCam fulfilled my needs, and I recommend you give this one a go.

(Update: 26/9/07) To stop the popups for each new frame on your phone, go into your tools folder and select your application manager.
Go down to jSmartCam, select options, and Suite Settings.
Change Connectivity to Always allowed
Change Multimedia to Ask First Time.
For more information, check out the read-me file in the installation folder.

Available for free from SourceForge.net

Joystick 2 mouse lets you use your game controller to move your mouse around the screen, and a whole lot more. You can do just about any Windows function with this program, including typing (though this would be a nightmare), all from your game controller.

The reason I looked into this was so that I could control Windows Media Centre from my couch. I had all sorts of problems finding a suitable tool. Eventually I came across this gem. After installing it, I found out that it could do much more than I initially wanted. There is no reason why it could not be configured to control first person shooter games.

It is highly configurable, allowing you to change almost every aspect of it. You can use it to control any application. The only drawback I found was that there was no option to disable/enable this utility from the controller. Disabling it is possible by exiting the program, but without the program open, you can no longer use your controller to re-launch the program.

Logitech users would probably be best using the profiler software which can be downloaded from their website. This will allow similar functionality.

Joystick 2 Mouse 3 is available for free from the authors website, or get it from Tucows.