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Sort of off topic, but:

What technologies would I have to learn to design and create sites that look this good, and use databases/querying facilities?

I continue to see sites like these, but think it's a lot more than the HTML I barely even know :)

Thanks (for reading, at least, even if you don't respond)

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For designing, I use Photoshop to create a feel of the site, then I render the CSS and XHTML.

For programming, I use Ruby on Rails(check out their website) and PHP. PHP is very easy to pick up, the learning curve is lower but in my opinion Rails is the way to go.

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