I agree, one such good book I got as gift (.......) is by Myke Predko.

Its a 2Kg book with tons of hints in it. LCD interfacing for Hitachi 44780 is included with details.

Aviya,

I suggest to begin with, you first get a ready made time base. Build the whole application on it with trial and error.

Finally come back to these nice tutorials and code your own software based time base.

(For a cheap and nice time base, take out the machine of your alarm clock that runs on one AA cell)

Good Luck

Babar/