This is not a section where I discuss the ins and outs of all the various HTML editors and plug-ins and text editors. This is a section where I tell you what you need to use this tutorial, and why those things are better than the other stuff you may have.

The first thing you need, is a computer. It doesn't even really need to be your own. You can use one at school, work, the library, whatever - as long as you have permission. Next, you need a text editor of some kind. You will notice that I used the term "text editor", instead of "word processor". This is because I mean text editor, and not word processor. Some of you may not know the difference. That's fine, because I'm about to explain it. A text editor is a simple, bare bones, no-nonsense program for making simple text files. Windows has a great one called Notepad, and Mac OS has one called Simple Text, which isn't really my cup of tea, but is great for this kind of thing. To the best of my knowledge, these handly little tools come bundled with the computer's operating system, so all you have to do is look around a bit on your machine in order to find them.

Ok, now I want you to pay attention to this part, because it's very important, and I'm only going to mention it just this once [ok, I may bring it up down the road, but it sounds better if I pretend I'm only going to say it once]: Do not, for any reason, under any circumstances, use Microsoft Word or Corel Word Perfect , or any similar programs, to write web pages. Do not. Don't. I'm not kidding. Firstly, Word uses a non-standard character set, which I can pretty much guarantee will make your pages look funny once they're online. Also, both programs will give you ugly, bloated text, and ugly, nasty code. Don't use them. Well, not for web pages, anyway.

It's also a good idea for you to have some kind of image editor. I use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe ImageReady, GIF Construction Set Professional, and Icon Forge. You will not be required to have all of these things, because chances are you will not be able to afford them all, and you will not need them all. These are professional level tools, and may be a little bit advanced for you at the moment [some of them are still a little advanced for me], but if you have the means, then go ahead and try them out. In the mean time, some simple, reasonably priced image editing tools are fine. The only absolute necessity as far as image editors go, is that they have to be able to save files as JPG or GIF files. Both is preferred, but we'll take what we can get. We'll talk more about making images later, when we get to the <IMG> tag.

The very last tool you need is a web browser. There are a whole bunch of different ones out there at the moment, but the big two are Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Netscape Navigator. The good people at The Web Standards Project tell me that currently the most standards compliant browser on the market is Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 for Mac, but we hear that the upcoming Netscape Navigator 6.0 is supposed to set a new high-water mark. It is a good idea to have multiple versions of both major browsers for in order to check what your work looks like, because the sad fact is that most browsers do not render HTML the same way, and no browser is fully standards compliant. That means that there may be a lot of things you will have to do more than once, or do in odd ways, in order for everybody to view your page. You may even have to give up and deal with the fact that some people won't be able to see some things. But don't worry, this tutorial doesn't get advanced enough to cover most of that stuff.

As for deciding which browser you want to use, don't worry too much. I use Internet Explorer, but I have Netscape kicking around too. I also hope to get a copy of Opera soon.

Anyway, I think that's all the tools we need for now. On to structure.