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Creating something for work...

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Discussion in 'General Electronics Discussion' started by jam, Jan 5, 2014.

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  1. Jan 5, 2014 #1
    jam

    jam

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    Jan 5, 2014
    Hey guys,

    So I'm new here - heyyy! Haha.

    I own my own company and it's a design company and as a result a lot of coffee gets consumed!

    What I wanted to do was create a device (a button that you press) that, upon pressing it, sends a message to the internet to inform a database that a cup of coffee has been consumed. I was thinking maybe it could send a HTTP request to an obscure webdomain e.g. domain.com/coffee-consumed-FS6D83UFSJ7123GHFHJS834298 (so it can't be publicly abused) and then have my website accordingly display the number of coffee cups consumed in a period (as a cute little fact).

    Does this sound like an overly complicated project that will essentially be a futile effort?

    Thanks for the prospective help guys :).

    James
     
  2. Jan 5, 2014 #2
    (*steve*)

    (*steve*) ¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd Moderator

    25,477
    2,820
    Jan 21, 2010
    Security by obscurity is no security at all... just sayn.

    There are plenty of examples of arduinos being used to interact with web sites. This sounds pretty simple. If you really wanted to, the box containing the button could also be the web server.

    With the availability of various shields and sample software, the project would be relatively simple if you're prepared to throw a bit of money at it.

    And futile... It depends why you want to do it. It's only futile if you can't get it to work and you don't learn anything.
     
  3. Jan 5, 2014 #3
    jam

    jam

    2
    0
    Jan 5, 2014
    I just thought that it was such a simple thing, and I doubt anyone would want to exploit a "number of coffee cups consumed by the office" little widget thing that having some hash-looking string appended to a URL was secure enough.

    How much money would you say? Don't want this thing (not supposed to be too demanding monetarily-wise or time-wise)

    The reason I want to do it is for a bit of fun. It would be nice for clients to be able to see a genuine figure of the number of cups of coffee consumed by the office. It would be fun for us to note as well :)

    Thanks for such a prompt reply.
     
  4. Jan 6, 2014 #4
    (*steve*)

    (*steve*) ¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd Moderator

    25,477
    2,820
    Jan 21, 2010
    Probably.

    An arduino, ethernet shield, case, and power supply, and as much time as it takes to code up. Depending on your experience, between an hour and a month.

    As long as the project itself is also fun to do and the time costs aren't chargeable, seems like a reasonable project.

    Note that configuring this into your network, perhaps changing your web server to display this new figure, etc, may all add expense. If you do all of that in-house already, then the people who do it might look at it as fun and not work. Just as long as you aren't in the business of making medical devices or something like that :D
     
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