Hi all,
During a small project I needed to interface an 8x8 led matrix and I opted to use the 74HC595 IC mainly for its price and tutorials available. Later on I found out that using the ShiftOut function isn't as "Arduinish" as it should be, so I've created a small class wrapper and decided to share the Library with you:
http://www.pauloricca.com/index.php?a=blog&idpost=18
The main advantage now is that we can connect as many 74HC595 IC's as we want and we can access each pin by using a familiar digitalWrite(pin_number, HIGH/LOW) method.. hope you find this usefull!
Cheers!
Paulo