Mainly HW orientes !
Raspberry, BeagleBone black, arduino, so many possibilities.. but when I comes to
talent and perseverance.. it might be a little difficult but here we get this kind of incredibly cool hack :
http://blog.zipwhip.com/2013/06/18/zipwhip-text-enabling-of-the-delonghi-magnifica-espresso-machine/
Gives you ideas ? 
When you have your own 24/7 server, it would be a pitty not to consider saving power as much as possible..
when it become so simple with today’s equipments !
I am thinking to controled power supply with nice and affordable USB controled plug like this one
Of course home appliance with x25, zwave or other RF based control could be choosed, but I did prefered wired solution this time.
http://www.aviosys.com/8800.html
I did purchase mine at:
http://mafianumerique.com/product_info.php?products_id=1800&language=fr
Linux control utility and links:
http://code.google.com/p/usbnetpower8800/source/checkout
http://www.libusb.org/wiki/libusb-1.0
https://github.com/walac/pyusb
Test under ubuntu 10.04 TLS
| $ sudo apt-get remove python-usb $ wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyusb/files/PyUSB%201.0/1.0.0-alpha-2/pyusb-1.0.0a2.tar.gz $ tar xvf pyusb-1.0.0a2.tar.gz $ cd pyusb-1.0.0a2.tar.gz $ sudo python setup.py install $ sudo python ./usbnetpower8800.py on |
Windows control utility and links :
Libusb is required from above link
http://www.craftedge.com/products/libusb.html
Then python script from code google will do the job
http://code.google.com/p/usbnetpower8800/source/checkout
| C:\Python27\python.exe c:\usbnetpower\usbnetpower8800.py on |
Some body wrote this FFT on 8052 µ-c some years ago. The source code disapeared then from the web, that’s why I attached here a copy of his soft package and I give mine also that is the same function set for the µc 8031 the RAM data are handled in a different way (because of external program data). Download it now!
You will certainly have little work to run it with your assembly program.