Okay, Ive been looking at some possible Arudino simulators that could be used to "viturally" build and test projects. Do you guys have any suggestions what would be a good one to play with. I've seen some "free" ones and some purchase programs.
Open to suggestions for recommendations if you have used these products. 
If you are just interested in simulating internal registers and SRAM, they can be helpful.
However, as soon as you have to start simulating external hardware, they all start to break down. How useful a simulator that can't provide realistic input and outputs?
danielNC:
Okay, Ive been looking at some possible Arudino simulators that could be used to "viturally" build and test projects.
I too am relatively new to microcontrollers. And I do not have a good suggestion for you. But I would like to use your question as a lead in to perhaps what you, and certainly me, could use as a guide to optimizing use of pins on an Arduino.
I'd like to see some sort of program that would take as input the type of information about what a user wants to build and then suggest a pin mapping for best utilization of all the pins while leaving unused pins easily identified for possible future use. As anyone playing with an Aduino knows, certain pins have specific functions best left to their designated role(s), other pins are no good for analog input and the digital pins can be input or output at any given moment, although it's unusual (I believe) to have then switch direction during execution of a sketch. It would be nice if a program would suggest the pin mappings and thereby allow maximum use of the pins and external HW without having to alter sketch code as a project evolves. Have the SW identify and maximize the current and future use. Perhaps by asking a few questions to help it plan where the designer is going to go. The output of this program should be some source code comments that can be placed into a sketch for documentation and and be (re) usedable as a starting point when a project evolves. Versioning or date stamp would be good too. It should also tell the designer how to hookup the external devices without causing shorts or other problems. In addition shields should come with a similar file should allow this program and the sketch compiler to detect overlapping use of pins. This would greatly simplify problem determination as it would never get to the HW hookup stage. Even a spreadsheet or text template would help in the planning process.
Has anyone used either "Virtual Breadboard" or the "LabView" with the Arduino environment? Any thoughts?
http://web.simuino.com/ ?!?!
Or a payed version of http://www.arduino.com.au/Simulator-for-Arduino.html ?!?
The last one i used a few times( free trial version, up to a 100 lines of code, some limitations and seems to runs nicely... Mind you the limitations didnt allowed me to test it thoroughly though!