i'm new to microcontrollers. what kind of a programmer do i need to buy or build, if i need to take away the surface mount microcontroller(atmega128) out from the circuit (programming circuit) and build my custom circuit using that microcontroller.
The best would be an ISP (In system programming) interface. Just add to your board a 6 pin connector, with connections for RESET, MISO, MOSI, SCK, GND, and you can program it (with PonyProg + a simple interface - www.lancos.com, or STK500&AVRStudio, CodeVision etc, AVRISP...).