[Android Apps and Games] gabster21:
A while ago I wrote a tutorial on how to turn your phone on and bypass your keyguard using NFC and Tasker, today I'll expand on that and write about how you can use NFC to automatically start a playlist on your media PC even with your screen off. By the end of this tutorial you should be able to just tap your phone on the NFC tag and presto! your favorite playlist will start playing on your PC.

What you'll need:

On your phone

Tasker (important: make sure you update to the latest version)

NFC Task Launcher

NFC Screen Off Mod (this is for the Note 2 and S3 ONLY, the same mods for other phones can be found with a quick search). Confirmed working for Note 2 stock LJ1 and LJ3 odex rooted.

Root (but I'm guessing if you have any of the above you're already rooted)

(optional) Secure Settings (be sure to enable Device Admin)

(optional) Media Center Control (or your favorite Media Controller)

(optional but recommended) Titanium Backup

On your PC

EventGhost

- Windows Media Player Plugin

- Webserver Plugin

Windows Media Player (you could use winamp or other players instead but you would need different plugins for Everhost)

Other Items

Writable NFC tags

PC and Phone should be on the same wireless network (you could make it work from an external network by forwarding the port, but I'm not going to cover this here).

Now on to the instructions..

On your phone

Use TB to make a backup of your NFC Service apk (in case you get issues after flashing the modded one)

Flash the attached NFC Screen Off Mod using CMW

Create a task (Play) in Tasker with the following actions:

(optional) Plugins -> Secure Settings -> Wake Device -> Screen and Keyboard lights on (30 sec or whatever you want)

(optional) Plugins -> Secure Settings -> Keyguard -> Off (this will also disable any PIN/pattern/password you have)

(optional) Misc -> Say -> "Starting Playlist" (or whatever you want it to say)

Net -> Http Get -> In Server:Port field enter 'username:password@xxx.xxx.xxx.xx:port' where username and password are the same as the ones you configured in your Webserver EventGhost plugin and xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and port are the IP and port of your PC and Webserver EventGhost plugin.

-> In Path enter '?play'

Prepare a writeable tag in NFC Task Launcher with the following actions:

Tasker -> Tasker Task -> Play (or the name of your task)

(optional) Launch application -> Media Center Control

Got it? That was the easy part :)

Now it's time to configure your PC

Download and install EventGhost from here: This is an awesome program, think of it as Tasker for your PC. It can pretty much control any application, run scripts, switch off your monitor, etc.. based on events from various sources.

Install the webserver plugin (Configuration -> Add Plugin -> Webserver)

- Expand Autostart, right click on 'Plugin:Webserver' and click 'Configure'.

- Fill in the same username, password and port you used in your HTTP Get action in Tasker (make sure no firewall is blocking your port).

Install the Windows Media Player plugin (Configuration -> Add Plugin -> Windows Media Player)

- Expand the folder 'Windows Media Player', expand the Macro 'Start Program: wmplayer.exe'

- Right click on the action 'Start Program: wmplayer.exe' and click 'Add Event', enter "HTTP.play" (this is your Tasker HTTP Get command)

- Right click on the action 'Start Program: wmplayer.exe' and click 'Configure', enter the playlist command for WMP: '/Playlist "My Playlist 1"' (replace "My Playlist 1" with the name of your playlist, don't forget the quotes).

Phew.. done!

Took me a few hours to get it to work but that was because I knew nothing about EventGhost and tried using EG Tasker plugins to send events via TCP, turns out HTTPGet is simpler and native to Tasker.

If you're feeling adventurous and have many tags you might want to expand the above to have a different tag for each playlist/genre, stick the on the wall and label them 'Pop', 'Metal', 'Hip Hop' or by artist/album and impress your friends by starting different styles of music without even turning on your phone.. or better yet, stick your phone in your back pocket and change the music by walking around and bumping your ass on the wall :)

Took me a long time to write this up, hope you guys find it useful! I'll be happy to help out anyone who is having trouble with the setup.