"Do you have an RC on your reset pin?"
All I have is a wire from the RST pin to ground... is there something else I should do?

"You need something like a MAX232 for your serial port."
I had assumed that I could connect the Rx/Tx pins directly to the Rx/Tx connections on a serial cable... is this not the case then? Could you explain why or point me to the answer?

"Do some searching"
It seems I've done nothing but search for the last month or so, and I haven't found anything resembling the answers to my questions... except the 8051 tutorial on this site, which was very helpful but doesn't contain everything I need to know. If you have some sites in mind that would help me, please point me to them.