In seven years things have changed and awful lot. Your best bet is to start with learning XHTML and CSS. Semantic HTML and the separation of markup and presentation are very important topics. You should be aware of the web standards project and why it exists, and why semantic HTML is so important. There are so many resources out there on this topic that I’ll leave finding them up to you. That covers the basics of design. Semantic HTML is a very important concept. Not only does it make CSS easier to write, but it’s immensely important if you ever get into development, be it client-side or server-side. JavaScript and the DOM are arguably the most important part of crafting a web interface, and both rely on cleanly structured HTML. Server-side development is another story. It has more in common with application programming than web design. PHP is the most commonly used language, and it runs on the web server to generate HTML pages dynamically. Other popular web programming languages are Perl, Python, and Ruby, altough those are generally used for more complicated tasks, and are more difficult to get into without a gerat foundation in computer programming.