Also - I wouldn't recommend using W3Schools for anything - notoriously unreliable and full of misinformation.
If you want to get into some of the newer technologies or learn more about coding with precise and informative tutorials use TeamTreehouse - I use it to brush up on skills and learn new stuff and it is truly awesome.
@JustinBeaird, your second round of questions would probably be better off as a new thread, but since you asked nicely i would recommend you avoid w3schools as much as possible. a lot of their info is out of date or just plain wrong (see: w3fools).
instead of that bookmark Mozilla's webdev docs, and save yourself a lot of headaches.
as for up to date books on web development, imo you should try to read everything that ABookApart publishes.
i also just recently got Aaron Gustafson's Adaptive Web Design, and its full of great info on the many ways to apply progressive enhancement to your work.
I love Coda, because of the awesome options like svn and direct FTP acces, you could use the command line.
I prefer Coda above Sublime Text, because of those simple and very useful options and because the awesome UI. If you got a mac and some cash I would go for it ;)!
Unless you're just looking for a text editor, I'd suggest playing the trial game for a while, as opposed to limiting your search to a free editor. Wait until you get paid for a job then buy the one you like most. All the ones I know of are well under $100, and if it's something you use for work, it must be something that makes you work better and it helps if you actually like the application.
I used to use TacoHTML and CSSEdit for OS X and that suited me well. CSSEdit is now dead (eaten up by espresso), and Taco just wasn't being developed fast enough and lacks features.
I now use WebStorm by JetBrains and I really like it. It is available for all major operating systems. The only issue is the lack of web-related features like live browser preview. With Live Reload (thanks, Chris!), this can be managed. Other than that, it covers it all. LESS/SASS, FTP, version control, validation/code analysis, and it handles JS, PHP and a bunch of other languages I don't use.
Works at 64 and 32bit and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's not the sexiest interface, but the amount of control you have over it is amazing, so you can skin it to your liking and fine tune pretty much every line of code in what has to be one of the most extensive preferences dialog box I've seen in a while. $49 if you decide to buy it. http://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm/features/ (I don't work for them nor do I get paid for referrals).
I love the look of Sublime Text, and it seems to be a well written program, a lot more lightweight than WebStorm, but with less features. If free is all you're looking for, Sublime Text looks like the winner.
So what lightweight FREE editor with syntax highlighting do you recommend
A portable one I can put on a usb stick would be nice but not necessary
@joshuanhibbert - that looks pretty cool. I will have to check that one out.
//cc: @jamy_za
While it is 'free' in the sense that you have an unlimited trial, I recommend purchasing a license if you really like it!
before that i was in love with coda, but it feels a bit out of date to me now.
or Aptana Studio 3 is a good alternative.
http://css-tricks.com/forums/discussion/16815/best-up-to-date-web-programming-bookss
sorry about that
Also - I wouldn't recommend using W3Schools for anything - notoriously unreliable and full of misinformation.
If you want to get into some of the newer technologies or learn more about coding with precise and informative tutorials use TeamTreehouse - I use it to brush up on skills and learn new stuff and it is truly awesome.
instead of that bookmark Mozilla's webdev docs, and save yourself a lot of headaches.
as for up to date books on web development, imo you should try to read everything that ABookApart publishes.
i also just recently got Aaron Gustafson's Adaptive Web Design, and its full of great info on the many ways to apply progressive enhancement to your work.
http://css-tricks.com/forums/discussion/16815/best-up-to-date-web-programming-bookss
thank you for your suggestions
I prefer Coda above Sublime Text, because of those simple and very useful options and because the awesome UI. If you got a mac and some cash I would go for it ;)!
I used to use TacoHTML and CSSEdit for OS X and that suited me well. CSSEdit is now dead (eaten up by espresso), and Taco just wasn't being developed fast enough and lacks features.
I now use WebStorm by JetBrains and I really like it. It is available for all major operating systems. The only issue is the lack of web-related features like live browser preview. With Live Reload (thanks, Chris!), this can be managed. Other than that, it covers it all. LESS/SASS, FTP, version control, validation/code analysis, and it handles JS, PHP and a bunch of other languages I don't use.
Works at 64 and 32bit and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's not the sexiest interface, but the amount of control you have over it is amazing, so you can skin it to your liking and fine tune pretty much every line of code in what has to be one of the most extensive preferences dialog box I've seen in a while. $49 if you decide to buy it. http://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm/features/
(I don't work for them nor do I get paid for referrals).
I love the look of Sublime Text, and it seems to be a well written program, a lot more lightweight than WebStorm, but with less features. If free is all you're looking for, Sublime Text looks like the winner.
There are also a lot of plugins (I think they call the packages) for it to add a lot more features (including FTP).