To be able to control my music collection from all the devices in my house I have set up NetRemote. It works very well towards J. River Media Center that I use to manage my music collection. In addition to this, there is a J River Plugin for Meedio, so my TV Screen will always be updated with what I am playing, and I can always change music with the remote in my living room.
To the right you can see the remote I use most of the time. My good old HP Jornada PDA. It has been upgraded with a WLAN CF-Card and works very well.
I am running the client on my laptop, my desktops and the touch screen in the kitchen. All the screens updates live if I change music from one of the devices.
And, last but not least – Meedio, controlled by a Snapstream Firefly remote from the couch.
To make the point clear: I use NetRemote to control what is playing in my living room. In our flat the living room is the hub of the home, so it actually makes sense to control the music playing there from my laptop sitting at the balcony or while making food in the kitchen.
Still, the main functionallity is the ability to control my music collection without having to turn on the television screen.
When I want to listen to music in another room or at a completely different location I use Slimserver to recompress, stream and control the music at that location.