[nothans]

The main hardware that others have used are Arduino, Netduino, and ioBridge. But, you can do more abstract things, like use CURL to send server uptime or embed a web page counter on your website that sends a Growl update or flicker an LED.

Here are some tutorials - http://community.thingspeak.com/tutorials/

Here is a project from me using netduino and jQuery to build a front-end showing updates from my house.

http://iamshadowlord.com/2011/02/thingspeak-building-my-own-...