Getting Started With Salesforce

What is salesforce?

Salesforce.com is a vendor of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, which it delivers to businesses over the internet using the software as a service model.

There is no software needed for developement..everything is on internet

for more info on salesforce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salesforce.com

Lets get started with developing applications with salesforce as a developer

1) Open the link in the browser

http://developer.force.com/

2) Register/Join Developer force by filling the registration form

3)You will receive your password in the registered email

4) open the link in the mail.. that will ask you for change password... change your password accordingly

5) you will be redirected to your developer force home page..

These were the steps i followed to get started with salesforce..

Now to create an application with salesforce, there are step by step flash tutorials, with screen shots and detailed explanation in the following link.

http://www.developerforce.com/flash_workbook/launch.html

The topics covered are :

• Creating an application with Force.com IDE


• Creating an application with Eclipse


• Using Formulas and Validation


• Using Workflows and Approvals


• Using Apex


• Adding Email Services


• Adding Test to your application


• Building User Interface with Visualforce


• Create a Web page using force.com sites


• Deploying an application


• Packaging & Distributing an application

Also the above tutorials are available in e-book format.it's called Force.com Developer Workbook.. you can download it from here..

http://developerforce.s3.amazonaws.com/books/Forcedotcom_workbookv2.pdf

and practice the tutorials at your lease..