A true Newbie

I have a couple of projects in mind which necessitate me getting to grips with VB. At the moment I have a copy of VB5 PRO and was looking to update it.
Firstly as my projects involve comms, isdn and FTP / Telnet etc is it advisable to get a later version? Can anyone make any suggestions? What is .NET all about?

Does anyone know where I can get a look at some software which will dial an ISP "type" connection and then run up FTP or a browser?
Any suggested reading for someone who has an idea about programming but not a lot about VB?

Moved from FAQ section

Welcome to the forums. :wave:

It sounds like everything you need to do is web based, so why are you looking at VB?

I should think you would want to focus on web based languages like ASP, VBScript, Java, etc.

If you want to use something more updated then there is also the 2005 Express versions that are about $49 bucks.

One of the versions is a Web Developer version.