CodeIgniter for someone totally new? - First Steps

[eluser]tonanbarbarian[/eluser]
software to use on windows?!? you mean like fdisk and then a linux install cd?
if you must use windows get wamp to setup apache mysql and php
there is another forum thread talking about prefered editors
personally i think eclipse is pretty good - look for easyeclipse as as the name suggests its pretty easy to get started with as you can download a fully setup php envirnoment