Arduino atmega 168 1k bootloader

I found
http://spiffie.org/know/arduino_1k_bootloader/

Tried, tested, but have several issues with it... It is a little unreliable... I found a lot of strange behaviour, when booting...

Does somebody has also some experience with this bootloader? Finally i burnt program directly to the chip, beocuse i really missed 1k of memory.

Problems i found:

  • strange upload - when i uploaded program, i had to reset the chip, when i powerd off and on (I had no reset switch on board) it corruptet whole memory
  • program started in wired way... when board wasnt powered for long time, i had to power it on and then of and on or reset... (i used serial port level convertor from arduino serial v.3, mightbe rpoblem is in this circuit - capacitor to charge? dont know)

I would like to ask for one more think - howto set fuses when uploaded scetch with no bootloader? I used the same like with this bootloader - efuse 0x02 and it works without problem (the memory for bootloader is free, just worried what will happen when te program size will be larger and it will fill also the bootloader part).

Tahnk you

Jan