NEED HELP!!

For a novice, I definitely would not be concerned, and honestly though people boast Canon's superior quality, its almost impossible to tell the difference between two equally priced cameras (with some exceptions, of course). The Sony is actually priced better than any of the Nikon's or Canon's. With all of them you pretty much get an unlimited quantity of lenses to shoot with. In my opinion, the Sony is actually a lore more user friendly than the Canons, and slightly more so than the Nikons, so its a lot easier to learn on than the others. I honestly think you should stick with the A350, but if you really wanted to go professional, I suppose you could get into a lot of the manual controls of the Canon and really play with your pictures, both artistically and realistically. If you're planning to stay amateur, at least for a while, I would go with the A350, and afterward you can choose to upgrade to another Sony (such as the new a900 that's coming out, or even the a700), or switch to a Canon or Nikon. More than anything its how the camera feels in your hand, so if the A350 feels good, then its probably a good fit for you.