<p>After <a href="http://www.winamp.com">Winamp</a>, <a href="http://www.songbirdnest.com/">SongBird</a> and <a href="http://www.musikcube.com/">MusikCube</a> I am now using Windows Media Player. You may be thinking why do I use it when it&#8217;s so heavy and microsofty. Well, I use it to Sync with my TyTN and it&#8217;s one cent coin sized microSD card. But then again, this sync is not really a sync. <span class="caps">WMP</span> checks how much space is left and we can send musics there. They are copied even if they already are in the device. One-way sync sucks!</p>

<p>Next, I like to lie down a <s>little</s> lot in the sofa listening to music and watching <s>morangos com a&#231;&#250;car</s> tv. Well, due to my enormous playlist, most of the time I wanna skip songs (no I dont like to make different playlists) and I don&#8217;t like to take my wireless keyboard with me to the sofa.</p>

<p>So I&#8217;ve looked for <span class="caps">WMP</span> remote control programs for my TyTN, but I haven&#8217;t found any freeware and nice to use. These are the times I love to be a developer :) First I tried to control it from Python using <a href="http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-win32/2005-August/003626.html">this</a> but it would only read things from <span class="caps">WMP</span>, not to perform actions.</p>

<p>Next, I thought about creating a webservice and then a PocketPC application to consume it. I did it (and can get you the code if you want), but it wouldn&#8217;t run in my <span class="caps">IIS</span>. Next try: did a <span class="caps">ASP</span>.NET website to control the <span class="caps">WMP</span> remotly, worked fine but when running on my <span class="caps">IIS</span> didn&#8217;t worked again. Damn <span class="caps">IIS</span>! I removed it and reinstalled, but no good. Looked for any hack or something, and no results. I tried to <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/12/ServiceStation/default.aspx">run <span class="caps">ASMX</span> without <span class="caps">IIS</span></a> but didn&#8217;t worked either. Next try: <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/israelio/archive/2005/09/11/424852.aspx">Mod_AspDotNet</a> and this time the application was running, but not affecting <span class="caps">WMP</span>.</p>

<p>Finally I managed to have it running. How? I compiled a command-line executable (like remotecontrol.exe next/play/stop/previous) and I created a python web script to call it depending on the link clicked. It runs on <a href="http://python.pastebin.com/f6ca44f62">my own Python <span class="caps">CGI</span> Server</a> and I access it from the <span class="caps">PDA</span> using PocketIE. I hoped a WirelessLAN solution would be quicker but it takes almost 30 seconds to perform a page query. My webserver responds quickly, the wireless network is fast and PocketIE works fines with internet pages. Maybe one day I&#8217;ll find out more.</p>