i am a newbie! help!

[sk3pt1c]

hi guys, i will be getting my first mac in a couple of weeks hopefully and hopefully i will have no problems with it,since i've seen a lot here.
it's gonna be a 17" powerbook
now,my course at uni is website design and development at MSc level
i am buying the mac because i like them first of all but because i will be creating websites in the future and want something stable to maintain them from
i have dreamweaver on my pc and will try to learn it over xmas
but i was wondering what you could suggest as a starter for the mac
pretty basic website develpoment with the possibility to add a database in the future.
is there anything free out there?
can't afford anything after i get the powerbook so...
help!!!

[bousozoku]

Why not Dreamweaver? The education version of Macromedia Studio is quite heavily discounted over the commercial version and includes many applications. MX 2004 includes more than any of the older or newer releases and you can get a version that includes Flash Pro for more ease in programming interactive forms.

[littlejim]

..SNIP.. but i was wondering what you could suggest as a starter for the mac
pretty basic website develpoment with the possibility to add a database in the future.
is there anything free out there?
can't afford anything after i get the powerbook so...
help!!!

The only free package I've heard of is nvu (http://www.nvu.com/).
I've never used it, but do a search for nvu on the forum and maybe others have experience?

[rozwell]

hand coding is a nice think to put on a resume and as i assume you want to be a web programmer. i say learn with dreamweaver and pull apart your code, then get used to doing stuff by hand... that only requires TextEdit or BBEdit if you want to put a few bucks in. i cant tell you how many jobs i have applied for that if you cannot hand code, they don't want you because that means you don't really know html. wysiwyg's usually make things look acceptable, but really make for messy code.

[sk3pt1c]

i know html and css, but i thought i should get to know a few industry acceptable software packages as well
i will try nvu and see if i can find dreamweaver
thanks

[OutThere]

The possibility of adding a database in the future adds quite a bit to your proposal. While you can easily use DreamWeaver for basic HTML web design and coding, adding a database or any dynamic and interactive features requires a scripting language. In the way of scripting languages PHP and the way it interfaces with MySQL (a database system) is the most well documented and easiest to use, but it is still a big step up from HTML and CSS. Also you want to avoid the n00b mistake of using a database when it is not all necessary. Sometimes people get carried away with their high tech pages that really don't need a database for anything.

[sk3pt1c]

thanks for the input :):D

[bousozoku]

i know html and css, but i thought i should get to know a few industry acceptable software packages as well
i will try nvu and see if i can find dreamweaver
thanks

Find Dreamweaver? It's available at http://www.macromedia.com as well as various demo discs you can get with magazines.

[sk3pt1c]

you don't actually think i will pay for all this software when i can get it for 3 euro a piece,do you?:cool:
thanks for the advice nevertheless