Well, it took a bit of doing, but my universal remote control is finally the equivalent of five other remotes. (It'll be six when we can find the remote for the stereo and CD player.)

Of course, it wasn't quite so easy as just punching in the codes for each device. Oh no. Nor was it as easy as calling the remote company and having the remote learn the new codes over the phone, or having it learn the infrared data from the original remotes. Oh no again. The only Hauppauge upgrade code they had was almost perfect — except for the arrow keys, which made navigating the PVR's menus pretty much impossible. And since just about everything on the PVR involves menus, what's the point?

And they tried teaching it two different codes for the DVD recorder, neither of which worked at all. And the universal remote's learning memory was exhausted after about half of the DVDR remote's 44 buttons.

But not all was lost! Thanks to a community of people who like hacking these devices, I found the instructions necessary to build an interface cable between my computer and the universal remote, and the software necessary to construct my own upgrades.

So now I have a logical, almost completely consistent button layout for all my devices. The volume buttons always affect the TV, regardless of what mode I'm in (though when we find the stereo remote, I'll make an exception for that). And I could actually cram all of the 44 buttons on my DVDR remote on there; no hunting for the original remote if I want to zoom or change audio tracks.