Oh and find a copy of photoshop or a comparable graphics program. Gimp is good (and free), but if you can find PS for cheap, go for that.
If you find out that you don't have the eye for design, don't waste tons of time (like I have), use an open source web design and focus on what you're really good at doing.
Software: I recommend Inkscape for drawing logos, Gimp for manipulating images. Photoshop is much better than either of them if you have the $$$.
Edit: Whoops, meant to reply to the parent thread.
There's a bit of a learning curve, but Firebug seriously changed the way I design and code.
Other than that, do what you'd do to learn any other creative skill -- find examples that you love, and dissect them. Figure out exactly what it is that turns you on and incorporate those details in your own work. Good luck!
Anyone have additional books that they've read?
So sayeth Jeffrey Zeldman:
Information architecture. Usability. Accessibility. Web standards. If you don't know about these things, stop designing websites until you have learned. Competence in graphic design is merely a baseline; it does not qualify you to create user experiences for the web.
Every time I think I can stop talking about these obvious, simple truths, some crazy bad 90s style train wreck hits me headlong and makes me weep anew.
1. start with tutorials or poking at an existing design until it does what you want; learn the fundamentals of html and css from a dummies-level book or tutorials
2. find motifs or patterns you like, and reverse engineer (i.e. steal) them: specifically, start with a canvas with the original image on the left and try to create it from scratch on the right
3. repeat 2 until you have a toolkit of techniques (e.g. web 2.0 motifs like gradients, rounded corners, patterned backgrounds, reflections, all that cliched shit :)) and can put together things from scratch
4. integrate more formal theory (graphic design books, typography, photoshop/illustrator technique, web design books, etc.)
your first few designs will suck, but you'll get better :) but definitely learn by doing.
You can bootstrap some of those by starting out with someone elses attractive, nicely implemented templates, but you'll still need some sense of typography, usability & CSS/HTML skills to adapt them to your own app/site.
1. Read/observe.
2. Design web pages.