Hackaday.com
AVR Programming 02: The Hardware
by Mike Szczys (@szczys)
http://hackaday.com/2010/10/25/avr-programming-02-the-hardware/

You may be able to write the most eloquent code in the history of embedded systems but without a way to run it on the hardware it will be worthless. In this installment of the tutorial series we will:

  -Look at some of the available AVR programmer options
  -Place the microcontroller on a breadboard and connect it to a power supply and a programmer.
  -Use programming software to send some example code to the microcontroller