Well just recently found HAK5 on iTunes and love it. Anyways I saw this post and there were a couple tools I wanted to recommend. While a lot of the tools listed are good, I've found a certain setup to be by far the best and most economical.
Graphics: Photoshop CS2 / Fireworks 8 They are both good and approach the same thing from different angles. Think of Photoshop as dealing mainly with adjusting pixels and Fireworks as more vector based. As far as which to use, I would say that Fireworks is easier, but Photoshop is more powerful.
Coding: HTML-KIT or Eclipse. I've paid for others, I've tried notepad++ etc. but I have to say that those two are the best. They both are quite modular letting you download the packages you want to use. Eclipse is geared more toward Java programing, but it's pretty easy to set it up for web development / php development. HTML-KIT is a bit smaller on the hard drive and focuses just on web code. I use them both depending upon the project, Eclipse is a must for PHP.
WYSIWYG: Don't. Learn how to do the code. If you want to be a Pro, you NEED to be able to look at the code and see how it should look in your mind and almost be able to validate it in your mind. Dreamweaver, Frontpage, etc, stop that from happening while writing crappy code. (Dreamweaver is better than Frontpage if you need to use one)
Where to focus your skills: Learn XHTML and CSS. As others have said this is where any pro should go for web design. Once you can code a great static site using XHTML and CSS, then it's time to start looking at dynamic sites. I would go with PHP myself, It's powerful, connects VERY well with a MySQL database and best of all... IT'S FREE!!! Just don't try to jump into the PHP until you know the XHTML.
Resources: I have to say that for me the best / most helpful resource I've found anywhere to learn web design is http://www.communitymx.com/ They have articles and tutorials covering everything any noob / pro could need.
Testing: Use Firefox with IETab installed. If you have a multi-monitor setup, use one for coding and one for preview / file management if you just use one monitor, get a virtual desktop program. Personally I run four 20" monitors at 1600x1200 for my design studio. One for coding, one for graphics / flash, one for preview, and one for file management / misc.
Tips: Validate every page as you go. I suggest getting one of the Validator extensions for FireFox that will tell you for every page you visit if it's valid code or not. Also only use up to CSS2 don't go to CSS3 yet.
As far as learning Java... It's not necessary for a good site. In fact I would say that in about 90% of the time that Java is used it's not needed. Most of the things that people use Java for can be done with CSS/XHTML
Anyways, that's my introduction here and my recommendations. I hope that this will be useful to some of you and Paralys, good luck with that job.
~Taz
