Thanks for all the help so far. I ordered a bunch of stuff from Tayda Electronics - great prices. It has arrived, but I ordered some wires from another supplier and they aren't here yet so I can't build it yet. In the meantime I'd like to learn how to use the MAX7219. All the tutorials seem to be about matrixes, but I'd like to start by just controlling individual LEDs as I assume that would be more basic and give me a better understanding of how it works. Any suggestions on good resources for this?