I'm thinking of a carrier in developing web services but I'm not sure what to study. I'm thinking on the lines of GNU/Linux, PHP, MySQL/PostSQL, ~Apache, JavaScript, CSS and ~XML.

I have small experience with all these technologies and have heard allot about them and they seam to be popular and that's basically why I'm looking at them as an option.

What will web sites be based on in the near future? What technology is going to stand up? What technology will hide in the shadows of popularity but still be superb?

Help me decide what to study in my free time while the academy tells me what to study in my school time.

First, learn to make static web pages using xhtml and css. Then learn PHP and MySQL to make dynamic web pages. If you want to host a site from your computer, learn Apache. CMSs are also getting popular. Have a look at them at opensourcecms.com. You'll probably want to go to http://www.w3.org if you haven't already. They have tools to validate your web pages.

You are asking us to predict the future. whoever can do that has the potential for world domination.
A better question might be "How do I position myself to walk out of the shadows with this technolgy?"

Start by trying to acquire a survey knowledge of these topics ... all of them. Brief yourself on them so that you understand basically how they work. Observe in particular how they share many more similarities than differences.

Also, review the automated tools that are available.

You should not plan "your future" around being a Web Developer. There are no barriers to entry, most of the work can be automated to an acceptable degree, and the business is certain to be off-shored to cut labor-costs.

Close to my hometown there was recently a "24-hour competition" for web designers, and many gullible nerds showed up. Unfortunately, the net effect was to hammer home .. in every potential customer's mind .. what is basically true: that a web site can be done in 24 hours. At ~$40 an hour, less than a thousand bucks complete. You can't live on that. Not for long enough.

Web-development technology is important, therefore, to understand, but you do not need to understand it deeply and you do not need to plan to be doing it "by hand." It will only be a tip of the iceberg in what must be a much larger and more intense repitoire of highly technical skills.

just a general comment, web services doesn't mean anything web page related. Its meant so that the back-ends can exchange data and do whatever processing is needed. And while PHP is big for displaying web pages, most companies still use C, C++, Java, and .Net to do back-end work, imo. Why not learn one of those languages as well?

Thanks for all your insightful replies, they really opened my eyes to a bigger picture.

I agree with Dave Kelly: we cannot predict the future.
Anyway my bet would be on xhtml, css, XML & python.

look on your local I.T. job website.

e.g: GB:
www.jobserve.com

search for developer jobs and see what takes your fancy.
or pick one with lots of work, or both.

my suggestion is to do an implimentation of bugzilla which is a 'lamp' based defect tracking system. i did mods for it to be a computer lab equipment schedular used to check-out pc's, projectors...