Salinas, Calif. ? It’s a chore that can quickly chill the warmth of the holiday season: Trudging outside each winter night to unplug the lights, deflate the blowup snowman and shut off the rest of the outdoor extravaganza.

If you don’t want to leave everything on all the time and pad the electric company’s profits there’s now a relatively inexpensive way of remotely controlling the power without having to rewire the house.

X10 Wireless Technology Inc. — yes, the same company that pioneered annoying pop-under ads on the Web — sells a $99 kit called ActiveHome Pro that includes three circuit-switching modules that plug into electrical outlets and are controlled from either a PC or hand-held remotes.

If you don’t mind some minor annoyances with the software and can get past the company’s hard sell, it’s an effective way to show off your inner geek — and stay warm.

I borrowed the gear from X10 after installing all the outdoor lights and set it up just as thermometers were registering subfreezing temperatures overnight. Granted, we’re not talking Minneapolis here, but it’s cold by coastal California standards.

The system easily can be used beyond outdoor holiday lights, of course. Lights could be programmed to switch on when someone walks through a hallway — even at reduced power if it’s late at night. Appliances like coffee pots and crock pots can be set to turn on at certain times. And then there’s burglar-deterrence, although there are plug-in timers that do that much more cheaply.

But back to my experiment.

The hardware installation was simple: I set a module to a unique number with a combination lock-like dial, connected the holiday lights then plugged the module into an exterior outlet, making sure the outlet was protected from the elements.

In my computer room, I plugged the included controller into another socket and then connected the unit to my PC via a USB cable.

Michael Cole, a product manager for X10 Wireless Inc., uses a computer to control the lights on the Christmas tree at the company's headquarters in Kent, Wash. The lights -- or any other household electric items -- also can be controlled from hand-held remotes.

Signals to switch the power on or off are sent over the existing home wiring from the controller to the outlet modules. The controller also can store commands, so it’s not necessary to keep the PC running.

After the software was installed, a popup window appeared peddling a fancier — and more expensive — version. Closing that annoyance, I dragged an icon representing the module into a virtual room, which I called “outdoor lights.” After punching in the module’s unique number, I could control it and the attached lights with a mouse click.

Actually, a PC isn’t even required: The included remotes do the same thing from within about 100 feet of the controller box. But a computer is needed to take advantage of the advanced features.

The software can set up timers, including a nifty setting that turns lights on or off at dusk. As dusk changes, so does the time that the lights turn on.

Basic routines, called macros, also can be programmed. It’s done by dragging and dropping icons and setting an action or delay. For instance, you can program the lights to turn on and dim after, say, two hours.

By combining the features, I was able to have a little fun by randomly dimming the lights and switching them on and off. It was an effect more suited for Halloween: cars stopped in front, perhaps waiting for a good view of the house exploding.

The software isn’t perfect, though. Though X10 has given up using pop-under ads to hawk its gear, the program is a meddlesome peddler. Each module conveniently has an “order” button on it so you can purchase more. They range from $13 to $50 each.

And there’s a particularly annoying bug: After minimizing the program it would not open again until I rebooted the entire system.

There also seem to be some missed opportunities, such as allowing control of the lights over the Internet or over a home network. The company says an Internet component is planned.

But we’re straying from the holiday theme.