Do you want to support stacked shields?
Could be good to have a look at some of the most popular shields to see which pins they are using (except for SPI/I2C) and try to stay away from those pins where possible to make your shield compatible with other shields.

I mostly use Uno's but some Mega2560's too and plenty of custom projects. Most people I know are using only Uno.

Add some pads so SPI can be jumper selected from Uno's D10-11-12-13, or have wires brought over from Mega's 50-51-52-53 (or whatever they are) for max flexibility.

Don't you get the same flexibilty if you plug into the icsp connector instead as on the ethernet shield?
That header is on the same place on both Uno's and Mega's but is connected to different pins.
Or maybe I didn't understand the idea you tried to share.

Use the Optiboot bootloader or skip the bootloader alltogether to get rid of that delay.

Did I put the delay in the proper spot in the code? And can additional lines of delay be stacked if the 16000 ms limit is not enough? Am I useing the proper term, Microseconds?
here is the code I used, pin 12 triggers the camera:

You can use additional lines of delayMicroseconds but it might be easier to use delay() instead and specify the delay in milliseconds.
I doubt that you need the resolution of microseconds to catch a falling drop of water at the right time.

If you connect the 12V wire to the 9V/Vin pin of your Arduino as in the picture you linked to you don't need any other power source for your Arduino.

Try searching the forum a bit for 433 MHz communication.
The pros and cons of different modules have been discussed plenty of times as well as the libraries used by them.
There's no need to start another discussion about it unless you have a more specific question.

You earn Karma when people click the plus sign next to your Karma level if they think want to give you recognition for your posts.

Red LEDs is usually a sign of a counterfeit board.

Other than that it's not possible to tell what you're doing wrong unless you share some more information with us.
Sounds like you're trying to burn a bootloader but I'm not sure and we can't see what programmer you're using and we can't see the error meesages from here.

[just a battery and the LED]

the LED and resistor works with 9v. just a battery and the LED. but it doesn't light up with 18v. both batteries are new and hold a charge. would this mean i need a bigger resistor?

What worked with 9V?
"Just a battery and the LED" or "just a battery and the resistor and the LED"?

What kind of LED do you have? Do you have any specifications?

There are examples in the library's examples folder. Try them first to see if your circuit works and go from there.

I wish people would stop naming their products *duino. It's not very creative and it's obviously confusing.

oh, it does

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You can do it by setting pinMode to INPUT_PULLUP like this

Code:

pinMode(1, INPUT_PULLUP);

http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/PinMode

You can also do it by just setting your input pin HIGH

Code:

digitalWrite(1, HIGH);

This was the way to do it in older versions.

I would not recommend DealExtreme. Their customer service is of the worst kind. They like to come crawling and apologizing and saying "thank your for it's understand" or other gibberish but they never do anything about your problems.
They are not fast to deliver either and they are not the cheapest.

Go to eBay instead if you want cheap chinese clones and cheap components of unknown origin. I do it all the time.
eBay sellers do almost anything to get a good rating and they almost always ship within a day. Shipping is often free and the shipping time is the same as for DealExtreme (when they actually dispatch anything).

For other suppliers I think you need to tell us where you're located in case you want recommendations.

Edit:
I often buy from www.electrodragon.com and www.taydaelectronics.com
They both have good prices and low shipping costs worldwide. Shipping can still take a while.

I

What does your circuit look like?
Are you running the chip on your Uno board as your topic might suggest or are you using a standalone setup like the one in the article you linked to?

I'm running chip on breadboard.

Show us your circuit

Im am not an ardruino user. I only buy it beacuse i will use it to a school project(clock).
I wonder what i need to change in the code to make the stepper motor only run in 1 rmp and the LED shall not blink/light.

Is your school project about getting other people to do the job for you or is it more related to electronics?