Trained as a software developer I've been active in the field doing mostly mobile apps since 2003. My first contact with microcontrollers came later, in 2009, and I still remember…
Learn how to set your atmega to work with various external crystals, program the fusebits, and build a fusebit doctor to revive your AVRs, in case you wrote the wrong settings .
Learn how to create a network interface for your microcontroller projects. Here I have shown an example using the Atmega8 and the enc28j60 . Build a simple Webserver to show sensor data such as temperature or humidity.