I have had my Squeezebox for a good while now but I just discovered that I have been missing its best feature.

Squeezebox comes with SqueezeCenter – a piece of software that lets you remote control your Squeezebox from a PC.You can stream music from your hard drives or iTunes or any number of internet radio stations or subscription services. But the best bit is that SqueezeCenter is hackable.

SqueezeCenter is open source and has a plugin model and there are tons of plugins for it. Here’s my favourite:

Do you ever find you’re in the middle of listening to your favourite track when your other half suddenly announces that the volume is far too loud and turns it down for you? If so, this may be the plugin for you! VolumeGuard detects “unauthorised” changes in volume and stealthily restores the volume to its original level. Changes are made in small increments over a period of time, so with any luck they won’t notice!

I have wished for that since forever! Well done, writer of VolumeGuard!