I am very new to this so this question may be a stupid question. I own a Cannon 8.0 Digital Rebel. I would like to to create a small home studio to take pictures for family and friends. My question is how do I attach strobes to my camera? What is the cheapest and what is the best ways of doing so? Also, could someone recommend a good and inexpensive lighting kit. Thanks.

You can get an adapter that plugs into the hot shoe and has a sync port on it. You can also get a radio slave kit. This way you aren't attached to wires and more importantly you won't have to worry about triggering voltage. As far as lighting set up, you can get a couple cheap light stands and umbrella's, and throw in a couple old but powerful flashguns (make sure they can be set manually) that can be had for cheap on ebay.

Radio slaves are the slickest way to go. PocketWizards are the standard. But there are a lot of alternatives. And there are also infrared optical slaves. Wein makes the most common ones, I believe. Aside from using a cable mounted to your hotshoe, the Wein infrared slaves will be the cheapest way to do it. Wein also makes the most common hotshoe to strobe sync cord adapter.

Thanks for the info.