I just hit the power button on the remote
Of course, for this to happen, several other things have to happen as well. One, you need a way to keep your remote receiver powered when the computer is off. Some motherboards will allow BIOS setting to do this (usually under the power settings). Of course, whether your remote receiver is hooked up via USB, Serial, or is part of other existing hardware will affect how well this works. Two, you need to have a remote with a power button (or one that's programmable to send a message to the computer that it perceives as a power-on command). Three, you need an OS which allows this to happen (Most versions of windows which support ACPI). I'm using an MSI mini-ATX mobo running Windows MCE 2004 with a generic MCE USB IR remote. I've got the system set up to respond to power on and off commands by going into and out of S3 standby instead of actually powering off. This uses almost the same amount of energy, but has the advantage of an "instant on" and "instant off" response from the computer, as if it were just another stereo component. No long wait while it boots up. Power on, and MC10 is running and ready to play in under 5 seconds. If I set it to actually power on and off, the remote would still work (I've tried it, prior to using the S3 Standby), but it would take much longer to turn on and off.