I think I might be on to something. Since Irreco is compatible with LIRC, it might be possible to use EventGhost (http://www.eventghost.org) to control your tv, vcr, dvd player, amp, etc via Irreco. EventGhost has an LIRC plugin. It also has plugins for a number of IR transceivers. My laptop is always on in the living room so I just need to get an IR Transciever for about 50 bucks and attach it to my laptop. Then Irreco should be able to send the remote commands to whatever device I want. EventGhost seems necessary because WinLIRC doesn't support usb ir transcievers. There also is the option of just running EventGhost and using the built in webserver plugin to create a web page remote control.