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The easiest way is to set up GeoServer as part of the OpenGeoSuite. The OpenGeoSuite sets up PostGIS and GeoServer and another application called GeoExplorer, which is a web-app that sorts out authentication and editing of spatial data, as well as simple styling.

That said, you can't just 'make a map.' You need to set up multiple tables, all with an appropriate schema, to hold all your different layers. That stuff takes experience, or will require you to iterate over time in order to get it right.

You could set it up in a Desktop environment first, use QGIS for that. Edit data in PostGIS for best practice, or use SHP files for ease of use.

I have had a fair amount of success using open source GIS tools for one of my side project to create a hunting map book. I am not too sure of how well either one would work for what you are trying to do but I would be surprised if they didn't. The 2 tools I have had the most success with are uDig GIS and GRASS GIS. Both of them will run on Window, Mac OS, or Linux just fine, they all can process shape files, and DB input as well as geo tiff files as well as other file formats. Another popular OS GIS program is Quantum GIS. When I started I found OSGeo4w which had a bunch of open source GIS programs compiled for windows with everything you need and tried out a few of them and found 2 that best suited my needs. At the time I know it included GRASS, uDig, QGIS, and a couple of other ones, you might want to check out OSGeo as well as there may have been other projects that have started or better meet your needs.

Here is an example of some of what I have done. It is a map of the MN deer areas showing the antlerless deer harvest per square mile for each area in relation to all the others during the archery season. This map is a 10 year snapshot where the darker area indicated more deer were taken per square mile.

ArcGIS is fucking expensive though. I use it for work and we are paying huge amounts in license fees. A single license is cheaper ($1500 I believe) but is still a very hard expensive exercise.

You need shapefiles of the New York zip code boundaries. Quick Google search gives me this:

http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/z52000.html#shp

If you want to view and edit shapefiles and don't want to pay or pirate ArcGIS, there are several open source alternatives. I recommend QuantumGIS. It has all the facilities for most common tasks and also scriptable using Python.

If QuantumGIS is not your cup of tea, MapWindow is another good one. It is much more lightweight and also can do majority of common functions.

• Fossil, a simple, self-contained VCS in a sea of increasingly complicated or bloated systems.
• Quantum GIS, ridiculously fast & user friendly, beats IMO even the most expensive proprietary GIS solutions.
• Ardour multitrack recorder. Less unknown, but still could use a lot more love.

As is UMN's MapServer, with a fully open source (GPL-like) license. http://mapserver.org/

For a nice and robust GPL'd mapping client that can pull data from MapServer, as well as many other sources, see QGis. http://www.qgis.org/

For a full-featured GIS agent with GPL'd license that can also pull date from MapServer see GRASS. http://grass.osgeo.org/

Another cool open source geographical application is PostGIS, a spatial data server for PostgreSQL that interfaces with all of the above. http://postgis.refractions.net/

Hardware:
Get a Garmin handheld GPS with a 12v adaptor & download cable, and probably a crate of AA batts.
Stick with consumer stuff. Buying a spare or 3 is cheaper than buying a Trimble survey grade and they all work well enough.

GPS Software:
Download GPStrans &/or GPSbabel.
http://gpstrans.sourceforge.net/
http://www.gpsbabel.org/
You can load the GPS waypoints/track/routes into a mapping format with GRASS GIS's v.in.garmin or gpsbabel+anything.

Mapping software:
Use QGIS. http://qgis.org/
Use GPS plugin.

Data:
Start by downloading SRTM elevation data and VMAP0 digital chart of the world data. Best there will be publicly available for Africa.

Instructions for converting into a usable format here:
http://grass.ibiblio.org/newsletter/GRASSNews_vol3 .pdf

Import and crop with GRASS GIS (r.in.srtm and v.in.ogr modules) and either use with QGIS directly or export into a secondary more popular format for use with other software.

GRASS works well on a Mac. http://grass.ibiblio.org/

GPS interface programs should work on a Mac, GPStrans is command line only so with some hacking and GPSbabel is well maintained so there should be a Mac port by now.

SRTM: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/
VMAP0: http://www.mapability.com/info/vmap0_index.html

Your best bet for a workable cross platform solution that can handle a variety of data types is probably qgis.

For simplicity sake you might look into prebuilt basemaps like these I am pretty sure qgis supports the bsb format.

QGis will allow you to import GPX files from a consumer GPS unit.