Hello,
I have a peculiar question to anyone who can help! I recently bought an arduino UNO board. Because I have a project for university, I created a veroduino (http://nathan.chantrell.net/20110819/build-your-own-arduino-for-under-10/) and I used on it the ATMega chip that came with the UNO board. I also purchased an FTDI programmer (FTDI Basic Breakout - 5V) and everything worked well. Until the day I broke the programmer.... 
!!! I have ordered for a new one but I really wanted to keep working on my project until then. I have a PICkit 3 programmer (http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1406&dDocName=en538340&redirects=pickit3) and I was wondering if it can be used for programming my veroduino. I have searched online with no luck so far but I lack in terminology and I am afraid that I missed something. Thank you for any help provided!
This is not a programmer, this is a USB-to-RS232 cable with DTR pin for reset. It uploads
sketches to an Arduino chip with bootloader installed via the Rx,Tx pins. After uploading,
you use the RS232 comms feature to talk to the Arduino with the Serial.print() functions.
What you should really do is buy another one of these.
PICKIT3 is for direct programming of PIC chips, not Atmel ATmega/etc chips. The PICKIT3
programs using the Sclk, Sdat, and Vpp pins on PIC chips, not via RS232 Rx,Tx. It's not really
intended as an RS232 interface. I seem to recall someone having some way to use it with
Arduino, but that's not its intended purpose.
Thank you very much for your quick reply and useful info! Will do as you said then!
Will this do the same job? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-to-TTL-Converter-FTDI-FT232RL-Board-/221203367987?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item3380bf8833 or this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-TO-TTL-SERIAL-CONVERTER-FTDI-FT232RL-BOARD-FOR-ADVANCED-USERS-/221203360385?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item3380bf6a81
The first part cited has a different ordering on the pins from the standard ordering
used by FTDI, so you'd have to build an adaptor cable. It's not clear what the pin
ordering is on the 2nd board.