Excellent Commercial Products:

Macromedia Suite (web design/flash/graphics program)

Maya (industry standard for 3d animation)

3D Studio Max (industry standard for 3d game design)

Hash (good, affordable 3d program)

Final Cut Pro (Darn good video editing program, Mac only)

Excellent Free Stuff:

Blender (amazing free 3d modeling/animation software)

Yafray (excellent 3d renderer - great radiosity solutions)

Ubuntu (Linux flavor of the day - easy to set up and install)

Dynebolic (bootable multimedia linux distro)

Knoppix (bootable linux distro - good multimedia tools)

3D Textures:

Maya NG (awesome collection of photographs - good fodder for textures)

cgsociety texture link

xsi base textures

3D Discussion Groups:

CG Society

3D Total

3D Studios:

Pixar

Blue Sky Studios

Lucasfilm

Laika Studios

3D Animation Schools:

Cal Arts

CU Denver