Life in the labs has been pretty good since we moved into our current offices. Before, we were spread out over two floors: my team was upstairs in a stuffy law office sublet, and the rest of our colleagues were stuck in a homey but increasingly cramped and run-down space four floors below. Since moving everyone to the third floor we've found ourselves with plenty of room, lots more light and a nicer kitchen. It's just a more pleasant working environment in general.

But there's always room for improvement. For one thing, the new space came with new locks -- ones with really expensive keys. Issuing keys to the entire staff wasn't practical, and coordinating door-opening responsibilities in a way that accommodated team members' occasionally odd schedules was inconvenient. Fortunately, the space also came with the button you see to the right.

Located near the reception desk, this button opens an electronic latch on the front door. Pulling the assembly out of the wall revealed the system to be about as simple as possible: the button simply connects two wires. Bridging them with a screwdriver fired the latch (from their small gauge and uninsulated connections, it was obvious we weren't dealing with dangerous voltages, but please don't start pulling cable from your walls unless you know what you're doing).

Connecting two low-voltage wires electronically isn't a particularly hard trick, so I decided it'd be fun to spend some evenings building a system to expose that switch to our network.

The Open Government Directive has pushed agencies forward to start soliciting feedback from the public. We threw together this quick screencast to show you just how to do it. Check it out after the jump.