I am new tot he field or industry. I wanna have have some sort of specialization, in prog'g languages of course. In database prog'g. What would you prefer? VB.Net? VFP? ASP? PHP? In graphics designing? Is 3D Max good enough? VRML is kinda tiry for me. AutoDesk? What else??? Help!!!

No short and easy answers on these questions. Lot of industry analysts would pay dear to know the answers right now. A lady with a crystal ball would be more helpful :-))

But jokes apart, you are mentionning too many dissimilar technologies, so I can give you just a few thoughts:

Microsoft is pushing VB .NET (and other .NET technologies) very hard, and experience teaches us that when MS is pushing something, it means that the thing will be around for quite a while. So, Microsoft technologies look like a sure bet.

On the other hand, Linux/Unix and related technologies are emerging the more and more as a viable alternative to Microsoft products. I recently read and translated two books about PHP and liked the thing so much that it made me change my general opinion about Open Source software.

VRML is today just a curiosity, but so was XML once. Who knows, maybe in the next year or two somebody may come up with some technological breakthrough which coupled with VRML would produce the ultimate solution for all our database problems. But the probability is thin, so I would rule out VRML.

The longer you're in this business the more you will come to understand that "everything changes, everything stays the same." Over time you will not only acquire fluency in many languages, you'll acquire a keen ability to develop more fluency .. even over a weekend. You'll begin to see how all of these technologies build upon the same concepts and foundations, to accomplish similar goals. (If you'd been around long enough you'd hear someone drop the phrase "they're ALGOL-derivative languages" and you'd not only know what ALGOL is, you'd have used it at one time or another.)

These young whipper-snappers got it easy... why, in my day ...

Seriously: don't try to find "the ticket." There is not "one single thing that, if you know that one thing, the world will beat a path to your door." But once you develop the ability to cope graciously with anything that's thrown at you .. which you certainly will with experience .. you can make a good living indeed.

The secret is: there is no secret.

Programming is not a science: it is a craft. And crafts are learned by doing. Any college degree, any certification, is only a faint beginning. A jump-start.

IF you want to earn good money in short span and retire early go for mainframes and SAP