Staples is actually selling the EASY button from their latest ad campaign in their stores and online.

Who would pay $5 for the priviledge of providing advertising for a retailer? The most selfless reason, of course, is that the proceeds are donated directly to the Boys and Girls Club of America.

The FUN reason is that this ridiculous red button has gotten the internet’s hacking juices flowing. Most of the hacks require some knowledge of circuit boards and the ability to use a soldering iron, although some of the demonstrators with soldering experience freely mention how they burned themselves anyways.

Here are some of the best hacks:

Easy Button Garage Door Opener - This guy bypasses the speaker and batteries and shows you how to make “The Big Easy” your interior garage door opener button. The link goes to a really nice flickr pictures set with instructions.

This guy shows you how to replace the normal “That was Easy” recording with a cheap Radio Shack voice recorder, so you can change the playback to anything you want:

You can get detailed instructions on his website.

If you look up Easy Button Hacks on google, you can see that people have really come up with some fun and creative ideas for this stupid gizmo. My personal goal is to get one of these and make it turn on the ceiling fan in my bedroom.