I spent an hour and more trying to get the FTDI adapter to work, noting that I included the parts you mentioned - pictured on Nick's site.
I end up with the same problem:
"avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x91"
I am now convinced that I am making some idiotic mistake along the way, very possibly the reset during uploading. groundFungus, can you elaborate a bit please?
Thank you both!