In addition to offsetting ETrade pro, you may also want to have a look at Incrediblecharts. (http://www.incrediblecharts.com/)
It's not as clean an interface as some of the others out there but to start with you can get the EOD trading with advertisements for free. If you like it you can upgrade to the full version with 20min delay ASX data and no ads for a very reasonable price. You'll find stock scanners in there which can be quite useful.
Also agree with everything debono said... good post!
