NOTE: Cut and pasted from a web post of mine...i just didn't want to re-write it... Since my arc isn't built yet, and we have recieved 27 feet of rain here in New England in the past 7 days, my basement flooded again. The pump went out sometime overnight and i had 3-4 inches of water in my basement/computer room this morning. I am smart enough, however, to have everything up off the floor (except my sun workstation!), so nothing was damaged but the carpet. So i was thinking today, why not put an H2O sensor in and have one of the dozen or so computers page/email me when there is water present? But......I am not a programmer, nor do I have any idea how to interface software with a hardware sensor (that I can't actually find at present on the web). So the quetion is, where do I begin? A quick google search finds alarm sensors, but no interface to a computer serial port...they just start screaming if they get wet. Even if i did find one, where do I start with such a thing, to interface with an OS to trigger an action? Does someone know of a (cheap) product to do this? Not only does is seem like a practical project for the house, I'm sure it will be a good learning experiance as well. Thanks for any advise...I'll be out collecting animals