You don't have to be any sort of computer expert before you begin coding web pages, but there are a few things you need to know. You do not need any software that's not already on your computer. You need a web browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) and a basic text editor (NotePad, SimpleText, etc.). I can't think of an operating system, like Windows or Mac, that doesn't have both of these items as intergal programs. Poke around until you find them.

You should know how to do the simple tasks below:

Using Your Text Editor

You should know how to open and type in your text editor.

You need to be able to save and open files in your text editor. This is usually little more than clicking File|Save in your Menu Bar at the top of the text editor's screen.

Being able to Cut, Copy, and Paste really comes in handy, but isn't absolutely essential to begin.

File Management

You should be able to open some sort of file manager and locate the files on your hard drive. Windows has two types of file managers. The better one is Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer, the browser). This is a program that shows all of the folders and files on your hard drive as well as any other drives/devices you may have.

You should be able to copy, move, and delete files and folders.

You should be able to create new folders (directories) and sub-folders.

Browsing

You need to know how to open your web browser and open files from your hard drive in your browser. This is little more than clicking File|Open in the Menu Bar of the browser and locating the file to be opened.

You should be a pretty good web surfer. It really pays to view a lot of web pages to get ideas as to layout, design, and code. It also helps to be familiar with downloading because there's a lot of great free stuff out there.

You should be able to view the "source code", or the HTML code, of a web page displayed in your browser. To do this, just right-click the page in the browser's screen and select "View Source" or "Source" from the pop up menu. Alternatively, you can click "View|Source" from your browser's menu bar. Sometimes it's "Edit|Source". This will bring up the HTML code of the page in a text editor.

Getting Help

The links below lead to some really good links on how to do the above tasks and more with Windows. I'll be adding links for Mac eventually. If you've just got a simple "How Do I...?" question, these sites are a good place to go.

http://www.baycongroup.com/win98.htm -- A general Windows tutorial.

http://www.bcschools.net/staff/Windows98.htm -- Good file management tutorial for Windows.

http://www.free-ed.net/fr03/lfc/course%20030109_01/ -- Good beginners tutorial on using Windows.

http://www.learnthat.com -- LearnThat's task-based Windows tutorials.

http://www.geekgirls.com/menu_basic_computing.htm -- GeekGirls Windows tutorial.