If your newbie , I recommend to use Google keyword tool for check the Keyword Researches, Track the Visitors for google analytics. Checking article Duplicate contents for Coach Tyler's Duplicate Content Checker. This is the very basic newbie seo tools in my method Thanks Mohamed Shajid InternetTechie.
I prefer tools i Google webmaster central and Adword tools are more effective than other third party tools.
tools can only help the people to achieve good result in less time and less effort but if u want best result in lest time ...follow your creativity..seo is an art
Different tool can be use for SEO where we can use tool according to our requirement such as if you require kw tool you can simply choose google KW tool and other too many tool which help the SEO task.
I recommend SEO book since this is what I've been using for almost two years but of course there are lots of helpful tools or plugins that you can use for your seo campaign.
I think the tool of seo for firefox is cool, maybe you can have a try, if you have anyother good tools, plz share with me, thx...