Thinking about starting webpage design, what do I need to know?

I am confused by all the acronyms, php, abc, 123, I dont know what the hell is going on.

Ive made 1 or 2 freebie template based sites before, but other than that Im a noob.

Really I want to know, where I should be spending my time, and on what program to get the most benefits.

I dont want to learn dreamweaver for example, if thats "SO 2003". I would like to learn the latest hotness. But I am intersted in dreamweaver. Although Ive never used it.

What are a list of software I need to know, to start designing web sites?

~thanks~

Find a book on HTML, open up notepad and start pounding away. That is the foundation of webdesign. From there you can learn to use CSS, PHP, and all those other acronyms.

Gotta walk before you can run. :)

my first 2 years of web site making was done on notepad. 1994-1995 made purty simple pages back then tho the marquee feature was way overused by me.;)

Handyman speaks the truth. Learn HTML first. (You might try the O'Reilly book.)

Remeber that you can open any file on your HD with the file:// URL. Example: file://D:/my_first.html, if you store at the root of your HD, so you can view your creations with your browser. (If you don't store them at root, then the path just gets longer, is all. In Mozilla, you can cut and paste a path name from Explorer to Mozilla and it'll do the right thing, no need to type the file:// part.)

Start there. Later you can download a free webserver (like Apache) and set it up for local use, then learn some scripting (php, abc, 123, etc.)

I suggest going to http://www.w3.org/TR/html4 and reading that stuff. If you're confused, google. And if you feel like it, download netscape 4 to see just how messed up your page could look to some people. :)

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/