I have a Logitech Harmony 510 smart remote that I use to control the devices that live near my TV. Programming the device was simple enough…I plugged it into my computer selected my TV, cable box, and dvd/home theater system and defined a couple activities like Watch TV and Watch DVD.

When you trigger one of these, the remote sends the appropriate commands to each device so you can watch what you want. The software made it pretty simple and I was impressed with the device support so I think the remote is a good value for the $80 or $90 price tag.

The only issue is that the software doesn’t run on GNU/Linux. To be fair, I didn’t try it on WINE but I like to explore what’s built specifically for GNU/Linux. Then I heard a couple weeks ago about a program called Concordance that lets you update your remote from gNewSense or some other Linux-kernel-running OS.

I decided to give it a go so I started by downloading the tarball and began to build the two parts I needed: concordance and libconcord. To successfully build them, I had to do libconcord first and I believe I had to make sure libusb was installed. Once it was built and installed, I found that I needed to run concordance as root. I also had to set an environment variable since the libconcord library wasn’t installed in gNewSense where the the concordance binary expected it.

Apparently, this programming process works by interacting with a website. Logitech runs a site, mentioned in the README files, that lets you download a communication file that triggers the remote to respond to the website. The communication file has some sort of session id so you have to download that each time you want to update the remote. Once that file is sent to the remote, the website gives you the menus that you use to select the options for your remote. When you’re all set, a new configuration file is downloaded to your computer and you run concordance again to complete the update. I had expected that this tool was flipping bits on the remote but it turns out it just provides a way to get the remote and website talking without the Windows-only tool.

I backed up my current config, made some changes, and successfully updated my remote. The end result is that I don’t have to go through 4 pages of custom commands to get to the HDMI input on my TV or to manually turn a device on or off. I should have looked for concordance a month after getting the remote rather than waiting 8 months as I did. I could have used the Windows tool too but what’s the fun in that?

Anyway, it was an educational and satisfying experience that opened my eyes to the way the remote actually gets programmed. I didn’t know that Logitech was storing the details of my hardware on their website but I guess that’s not such a big concern. Maybe Logitech should help me sell them when that comes time?

Have you tried it? How has concordance worked for you? If it’s good, go to this page and write it a good review!!

Ever since I ripped my music collection to MP3 format and began collecting MP3s online, I’ve been struggling with managing and listening to all this music. In the past I’ve used WinAmp and iTunes on Windows XP to manage music locally. I’ve used Edna(a python script) to serve the music using its built in web server. Finally, I’ve copied this 30GB library a few times only to delete parts of it as I need the space on various machines.

Each of those setups feels like a kludge compared to my current Rhythmbox setup. I’m running Ubuntu and Windows XP on my computers at home and have found using Rhythmbox to store and serve my music has been the best experience so far.

To share music, start Rhythmbox on the computer that’s storing it all. Go to Edit -> Plugins and check the box next to DAAP Music Sharing. Then click Configure on the right and check the box next to “Share my music”.

Then if you want to listen to the music on any other computer, start Rhythmbox and go to File -> Connect to DAAP share and enter the name of your music server. Right away it’ll pull down a list of files and you can begin searching, playing, and queuing up songs right away.

One tweak I’d recommend is on your server to have Rhythmbox watch your music folders. This helps when you have a program like bashpodder downloading your podcasts for you on a daily basis. Go to Edit -> Preferences and the Music tab and check the box to “Watch my library for new files”.

If you use iTunes, stop. If you can’t stop using iTunes, you’ll be pleased that it’ll auto-detect these DAAP shares so you can play it all from machines upon which you don’t have Rhythmbox.

In theory you could even share this music to your computer wherever you are by opening a port on your router and using dyndns but I’ve not tried this. I would suggest setting a password on the DAAP share if you do.

One thing I might like to do is to connect remotely via ssh for increased security. If you have any ideas on that, please leave a comment. Also if you know of other free software audio clients that connect to DAAP shares I’d like to hear about those as well so people on Windows or OS X can enjoy more freedom in their software. Above all, enjoy your audio where you want, when you want!