The ‘Average Man’ has got hold of a Pi-LITEr board from Ciseco. These tiny boards feature a row of bright surface-mounted LEDs and plug directly into the GPIO. It’s really good for teaching yourself about GPIO and you could make, for example, a really nice night-light out of it. He’s included some code examples to get you going and you should have fun if you decide to get one. (Plus they’re really cheap!). Read Average Man’s blog post about it. You can get hold of a PiLITEr from Ciseco here for £3.