Has anyone tried making a remote for the reader? Nothing fancy, just for page turns.

Many PocketPC's and other PDA's with an infared hookup can also be used as a programmable remote. As far as I know, the stock Sony Reader lacks this feature and is unable to do this.

However, you can build or purchase addon IR units to do this. Here is one device:

http://iguanaworks.net/product1.psp

We would need someone familiar with the reader, LINUX, and the software to determine if the device can work this way.

oops... missread the email -- you wanted a remote device to do page turns and not act as a tv or stereo remote control.....

I'm assuming the original poster was talking about some sort of wired remote control. It's certainly possible with skillful soldering and ideally adding your own connector to the case for the controller.

But as it is, the reader lacks IR capabilities. The USB and dock connectors, as far as I know, don't allow for any kind of control. They just send the reader's software into "connect" mode. I don't think the reader has any kind of host mode in Linux that would allow the unit to power external peripherals via USB either. Even if that were the case, you'd have to have some sort of custom-programmed microcontroller to communicate the button presses to the operating system. That kind of feature is inelegant and unsightly at best, it's just technically more trouble than it's worth and definitely full of obstacles on the OS side.