I used to have an Acer with an IR port at the front. So when I was demoting it to the media server duties, I thought I'd try and piggy back on that IR port to c

I used to have an Acer with an IR port at the front. So when I was demoting it to the media server duties, I thought I'd try and piggy back on that IR port to control it with the regular TV remote. It was a good hack and it actually worked, but I forgot ... to test it from a distance. Apparently the IR receiver, even with the decorative cover removed, wasn't sensitive enough to pick up anything from farther than 1 feet away. Likely, by design too.