

Ask HN: Turning my RaspberryPi into my Startups Notice Board.  - chrisacky

So, I'm looking for "clever" incredibly geeky ways of hacking with my RaspberryPi (when it arrives).<p>There are some metrics and events that I'm tracking on my website and I'm currently looking for a weekend project to alert me in my office when some of these events occur.<p>Some of the events are:<p>- New User Sign up.<p>- Site unreachable for 1 minute.<p>- Purchase<p>- Help Message Sent<p>Now, the way that I plan on alerting myself of some of these events has to be "awesomely-<i>cool</i>". So i'm looking to some of the more "analogue" ways. I don't plan on connecting the device up to a monitor idenfinitely, and would like something like a "Air Horn" siren for example, if my site is down.<p>Do you think this would be possible? I could pick up a programmable USB power socket, but I can't really think of <i>any</i> other devices that I could connect via USB that would be <i>easily</i> programmable.<p>I don't want to bite the bullet and just build something that works through a monitor, cause I would like the "analogue" feel to whatever I first build.<p><i>Awesome-sauce</i> is a required for this project! So if it uses a monitor, it's out!
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noonespecial
RasPis have GPIO pins. With even the most basic soldering and the simplest
circuit, you can use a relay to turn on low voltage devices like blinkenlights
or buzzers. A tiny bit of extra study will get you motors and servos.

Flipping a bit on a GPIO is as simple as echo-ing a 1 or 0 to a file in dev.

Awesome is made of solder, my friend.

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chrisacky
They have two GPIO pins right? But I can still only flip it to either on or
off. So while it would be useful for something like turning on a single light,
I'm not sure how I could use the GPIO pins to send say a number of users
currently subscribed or something similar?

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soapdog
you can hook the RasPi with an Arduino and use the gazilions libraries and
shields....

I recommend an flip display like those in airports for your sign ups. A
traffic light for server monitoring. A translucent display with a question
mark that is illuminated by an RGB led when the help message is sent...

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chrisacky
I love that idea. I wonder if I could get an "Airport Sign" anywhere. I
thought about hooking up the RasPi to an Arduino, but then did it not just
defeat the purpose of using a RasPi and not going straight to Arduino. I like
the traffic light idea too. I could probaby pop into a CNC/CAD machine
sculpting place to create a pretty decent chasis for a custom light box.

While on the topic however, do you know how I might find one of those "flip
displays"?

