MAKE has posted Alasdair Allan’s three part series concerning the ESP8266 MCU. Alasdair highlights the capabilities and limitations of this chip, the installation and use of a supporting version of the Arduino IDE, and how to create a breadboard adapter for the ESP-01 breakout board (pictured above.)
Via MAKE.
The latest esp8266/Arduino supports using RTS and DTR to control flashing the code to the esp8266.