I've been programming for years, and I too prefer Edit Plus. You can get it at
www.editplus.com. It gives you linkable tools, syntax highlighting, lots of helpful stuff without trying to write your code for you like some IDEs.
I actually like the Sun tutorials and keep them linked as one of my tools. I also have a small Java library, but really only one good book on the basics is all you need to get started. Sun also offers free downloadable books like The Java Programming Language, which is written by the team that developed Java, and offers some of the cleanest explanations of how Java works, but it doesn't have tons of examples for a pure beginner at both programming and at Java.
The library suggestion is good, that is if your library has a good selection of Java books. I live in a mid-sized city (Sacramento) and the Java collection is not very good. Amazon.com has lots of Java books for sale used and cheap, and you can read customer reviews before you buy. If you buy a book that's a few years old, you may not get the latest features in it, but the fundamentals of the language have not changed very much, so you'll still be able to learn.
And the best teacher is... practice! No matter which tutorial you try, you won't get very far unless you type the code (I'm against simply loading the code someone else typed, compiling it an running it as is.), compile it, break it, fix it, modify it, then do it all again. That is how you learn the true way a programming language behaves.
Good luck! And welcome to Java...