[psgarcha] took a year-old Arduino Uno on an international trip and upon returning found something was wrong. Every time he would try to upload, he would get the dreaded avrdude error, ‘stk500 ...

The official Arduino IDE is a dour piece of software designed for uploading code to the ubiquitous and super-cool micro controller. It is a standalone, non-networked app that isn’t very pretty ...

Although Arduino's programming language is based on C++, you won't be able to use all of its commands. But, you can still use objects in Arduino's IDE, which are a fundamental aspect of C++.

Click Sketch > Verify / Compile to make sure the code is properly in there. Save the file and then attach the Arduino to your computer with the USB cable. Click File > Upload.