SurfaceMount

Surface mount can be less hassle than through-hole, especially for parts with lots of pins.

Some useful parts:

• [Atmel ATTiny26] - nice little AVR that comes in 20-pin SOIC. $2.58 from Digikey [ATTINY26-16SC-ND]
• [Identification Pictures for SMD] - nice set of pics of common packages. Shows the relative sizes.
• [Dan's Small Parts] - has some SMD assortments at the bottom. Haven't tried 'im. Looks like some dude in his garage.

Linky linky:

• [The toaster oven method] - check out the number of pins! There ain't no through-hole version.
• [More toast oven madness] - nice walkthrough with good shots of encountered problems.
• [PIC based controller for toaster oven] - using a PIC to get better curves out of the toaster oven
• [Low-cost SMD soldering guide] - from avrfreaks. Requires registration.
• [BD Micro SMT Soldering Tutorial] - hand soldering. Uses AVR and MAX232 as examples.
• [SMT failure library] - photos of some problems with SMT PCBs.
• [$20 hot air gun] - desolder iron from RS + aquarium air bubbler
• [Stuff from the PIClist] - lots of good info
• [Hand soldering SOIC] - you can use blue tack to hold 'em down
• [Mike Estee's SMT page!]