I remember not so long ago seeing a news story where they portrayed a future where everything in your house would be controlled by a single computer and a few hand claps.

That day still has not come to pass for most of us although this is an interesting attempt to bring it to the masses. MisterHouse is a small interface designed to control all your electro-domestic devices from your PC. The program is designed to manage the use of lights, telephone calls, radios, televisions, calendars, watches, alarms, security cameras and answer machines.

Be warned however that firstly, you'll need some sort of infra-red or wireless devices attached to your equipment to allow it to communicate with MisterHouse. Secondly, this is an immensely complicated program to configure and setup. In fact, if you have little Perl programming experience, you should probably stay well away as it relies on many commands to configure correctly. There is a thorough guide on the developer site but still, it takes some understanding if you're not familiar with Perl.

This is no solution for the masses but if you've got electro-domestic equipment with remote communication built in and are familiar with Perl, you may find it worth a shot.