So I recently received one of these for my birthday:

By the wonderful one of these. It’s a very unique remote, and works very well with this:

However, this isn’t any ordinary remote… It you turn it over, it becomes this:

Which is super convenient… except for one issue. When you flip it over, it sends a signal to the software, which pulls up this:

While I’m sure it’s useful for some people, it’s quickly become an irritant for me. Thankfully, you can get rid of it by going here:

And then here:

Then select this:

Finally, turn off this:

So, you get all that?

To put it in more search engine optimized terms, I was recently gifted a Pulse-Eight Motorola Nyxboard Hybrid by @Mageuzi. It’s a HTPC remote designed for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers which allows you to control media center software such as XBMC. While the remote’s universal, it was made with XBMC in mind, but it also recognizes that HTPC users sometimes need to use more than a 4-way direction pad and a select button. If you flip the remote over onto it’s backside, the remote becomes a full handheld keyboard, complete with a mouse emulator. It’s all well and good… except for one feature that Pulse-Eight and Motorola decided to build into the remote. When you flip it over, the remote sends an F7 command to the HTPC, which XBMC interprets as a request to open up the search box. I don’t ever search for anything in XBMC, so the flip-search feature is pretty useless to me. While I recognize that I’m never going to use 100% of every feature in a product I buy, it is a bit irritating to have to click OK through a dialog box every time I want to use the keyboard or mouse of my remote. If you also would like to turn off this feature, go to the Settings section of XBMC, then it’s System section, then the Input section, and finally the Peripherals option. Once you uncheck “Enable Side Switch Commands”, your Nyxboard will stop bringing up the search box every time you turn it over.