hello
yes dave forwarded me nicholas' email me just after I got it working..
i was able to program the 168 but using avr studio... (thanks to parallels for mac..) but avr dude gives so many confusing error messages with it that it made me lose a week...
I was in a small city in germany for 2 weeks when my programmer died and in one week i've built every possible programmer out there....
It needs more testing and I have to send a bottle of wine to Guido 
massimo