EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi all,
I'm looking for new things to try, been doing a lot of PVE, half way through the Sisters of EVE arc. Only three or four days spent in game so pretty new, about 100K skill points.
I want to get into Hacking/exploration, but all the guides are quite old, so what skills do i need to train exactly? I currently training through my basic certificates at the moment.
What ship do I need? or would be best? I'm currently running a Kestrel as a missile boat, will i be able to use that? or buy another boat? I have 5 mil to play with.
what exactly do i need to put on the boat? most guides just say that i need to put X on to improve Y. As a noob, means nothing to me .
now i understand how to get a 100% signal strength, but when i played about with it after do the career tutorials all i found was wormhole after warmhole, went from 1.0 system to 0.6, still the same, am I just unlucky or am i missing something?
Any help would be received with open arms as once I finish the SOE arc, I'm going to be scratching my head as where to go now, other than more missions.
Thanks
Danny (thats my real name)