My personal philosophy on web design
"If you can't design an attractive, standards-compliant web page using nothing more than Notepad and a decent graphics editor, you need to rethink your approach to web design."
That statement will be controversial
to some, and downright heretical to others. What? Hand code
an entire page in Notepad? This is 2006, man! Get with the
program!
But look at that statement again. Notice that I didn't say that's what you should use to design your pages. I said you should be able to design pages using Notepad and a graphics editor of your choice. After that, feel free to use whatever html editor you feel does the best job for you.
So without further ado, here are the tools I use to design great web pages:
The Software
Dreamweaver 8
Paint Shop Pro X
Smart FTP
FireFTP
Web design extension for Firefox
Online Resources
SitePoint
GoDaddy
LunarPages/LunarForums