I’ve bought a Microsoft MCE usb infrared transmitter/reciever. (yes I know, ms, but it is cheap decent hardware by Philips).
It comes with a receiver, with a very long usb cable. A remote (with backlight) and 2 infrared transmitters.

Hooked it up to my mac mini, compiled the latest lirc and everything worked, instantly. After writing a little lircrc I had easy control over mpd via my remote control.
But it came with 2 infrared transmitters, so I placed one before my amplifier, and the other before my cd-player (that hotlinks the remote to my tuner).
After searching for some matching codes for my amplifier (I somehow misplaced the remote a few weeks back) and for the tuner (it came withouth an remote) I had full control from my pc over my stereo. Again without any problems, weird debug sessions or any other black voodoo.

This is pretty impressive, I can have my pc turn my amp on switch it to the tuner, turn the tuner on, set it to Arrow Jazz FM, and increase the volume every 5 minutes.

So now I am looking for some software that intergrates this in a nice webpage. I plan to write a small controller program for my home-brew light-control system. It consist of 4 220V outputs that can be turned on and off using either buttons, or a time (it has a nice 2×16 display and 64 fully programmable alarms) build around a atmega 16 and beside a nice control panel, also has a serial interface.
So my HAS (home automation system) is getting complete.
I should see if I can put my legoâ„¢ mindstorm to good use of opening the luxaflex

Q

p.s. if anybody has a lircd.conf for the remote that ships with a NAD C320BEE please send me this, I need the codes for on and off. (I now only know the code to toggle it).