Wife friendly remote?

Pretty much any universal remote can be programmed w/ MCE remote commands and you can USB MCE IR receivers(they can be found for $20 and con w/ a remote) so you can hide the HTPC and just have the receiver out in line of sight if using IR or hidden away w/ the the IR blaster for a RF universal remote.

If you get a RF MCE remote you will not be able to use a universal remote with the RF receiver.

Pretty much the only RF universal remote under $100 is the discontinued Monster AVL-300 (currently ~$75) which has the guts of a Harmony 890. This is pretty much the only Monster product that is actually a decent value, but only since it is clearance priced.

Once you pick out a universal remote you just need the HP Media Center IR Receiver from eBay for ~$10.

I have a remote FAQ and buyer's guide here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1318737

I'm using the RCA RCRP05B (~$20) as my master remote control. It's a JP1.3 remote control, controls up to eight devices, and has a six-pin interface that can be programmed from your computer via a $30 cable. If you're able to build and put an HTPC into service, you should be able to figure out the JP1 software and get this remote to do virtually everything a $200 Harmony can do. Even without a JP1 cable, you can control WMC from the RCRP05B because the code is already in the remote.

This device is very wife-friendly - it's marketed as a replacement remote control for cable boxes and DVR's. Already has buttons for 30-second skip ahead, 7-second skip back, and return to live TV. In fact, it's so wife-friendly that my wife didn't need to learn any new buttons when we switched from ReplayTV to WMC.

For more information on the JP1 interface and remote controls: HiFi Remote Forums

Plus, there's people on AVSForum that can help you out also - mdavej has helped many of us with the JP1 remotes.