starting a pulse counter project.

For this project what advice would you give me for going about this? What code should I use for the board to count pulses or do I have to buy a pulse counter? This is just the begginning of the project if I get the pulse counter to work, I would also like to program it to send emails out after every tick. Do I need to use the ethernet shield for that or can I send emails through my computer using usb? Also what code would you suggest for doing that?

The first link on a google search to the topic gives that site:

Sending an email after every tick is giving you about 60 emails a second. Your provider will not appreciate, I guess. You can send emails using the ethernet shield or by sending the data to your PC and let it send out the emails. Depends on your programming skills, which way you wanna go.

I would like to be able to send out emails every 5 minutes, also which do you think would be easier to set up, using the usb or using the ethernet shield?

If you don't have experience with the raw SMTP protocol the version with the USB connection to the PC is probably the easier one and also the one you will find more examples on the internet.