Quote Originally Posted by scalerobotics View Post
You might be interested in an article from Nuts and Volts magazine August 2010 on page 39, called the WatchPuppy. It does pretty much just what you are talking about, and uses a pic chip 16f873 and a UM232R usb to serial converter.
thanks! you forced me to subscribe.. but that's probably a good thing anyways.

it looks ideal. ie the article you refer to.

But, in the spirit of invention.. does anyone know how to make one in PIC basic.. I guess I just like the idea of building it myself :-)