A lot of email programs still give you a tiny little ding to alert you whenever you’ve received a new email in your inbox. But how would you like to hear that ding from outside the confines of your computer speaker?

You won’t be able to buy one of these USB bells anywhere, but you can make one yourself. The bell itself is pretty easy to find; if you don’t see any at your local stores, then filch one from the public library or from some hotel or restaurant. (Just kidding!)

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Seriously though, this little contraption might look pretty simple but a whole lot of work went into turning this plain old bell into an email alert sounding device.

You can find complete and detailed instructions on how to construct your very own USB bell from Instructables.

[via Slippery Brick]

With a few bucks worth of off the shelf parts, an Arduino board, a USB cable and a little code, you too can have one for your website, thanks to this detailed “how-to” article over on Tinkerlog.

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While I think the idea is really clever, I think you’d end up throwing the thing against the wall if you have even a mildly popular website. But if you just have a personal blog, or only want to monitor a single page, it could be gratifying to hear the little bell ring every time a visitor pops by.

Ding!

[via MAKE]

Funny thing is… I’m pretty sure I’ve been a customer of all of these companies at one point or another.

[via Digg]