Next Lens for a newbie with a XT

I just recently bought a Digital Rebel XT, and I LOVE IT!!!! But even though I haven't had it long, I'm looking towards the short term future and possibly getting a new lens. The one that came with it is the EF-S 18-55mm, and while it takes good photos, I'm reading that is pretty low end. What would you suggest as a next kind of step-up lens for my camera? My photos range a lot, from landscapes to closeups to portraits, and I'm looking for a nice semi-general purpose lens thats a step up in quality and features from the one I'm using.

If that made any sense, I'm welcome to all suggestions! Thanks!

17-40L 17-55is
whats your budget?

A step up?
17-85 IS.

Two steps up, but for less?
18-55 IS.

(Who'll bite? )

here are some lenses that might fit your requirements...

17-55 IS - the best for crop but expensive

Tamron 17-50 - best bang for your buck lens

18-55 IS - cheap but a lot better than your kitlens

17-40 L - very good IQ & build, reasonably priced, short at 40mm(?)

by the way, welcome to the forum!

Two lenses I would recommend.

Everyday use - Tamron 17-50 2.8
Portraits either the 50 1.8 or the 50 1.4 if you can push it but more ideally, the 85 1.8.

Budget? Well, I'm a university student. Does that answer your question? :P Actually, I'm thinking around the 200-300 range. I just can't justify anything more expensive with me just getting a tad more serious about photography. I like the 18-55IS, its in my price range, and was actually one I was looking at already. The Tamron is a little outside of the price range too, my local camera store pegs it at $475 CAD.

How about second hand lenses? Is Ebay a viable option for buying them, or simply too risky?

Edit: I forgot to add, thanks for the welcome and all your help. I'm probably going to have a lot more questions to come! :P

ebay won't do you much for 200-300$. i think your only option is the 50mm f/1.8 you already have a 18-55, i don't think you would see the difference in the 18-55IS just yet. canon almost has NO lenses for 200-300$ i think you are under estimating the prices of lenses... http://www.the-digital-picture.com/ scroll down and look at the lenses, check the prices of all of them also (there are links on the bottom of the reviews to amazon,adorama, b&h. you will soon notice that ALL lenses are expensive. welcome to photography >.

Figures. I'm still playing around with my kit lens, and I like what I'm getting so far, but everything I've read about the lens I have talks about 'coke bottle optics' and such, one site mentioning it was put to better use as a paperweight. (Forum post on some site I visited a couple weeks back.) That was one of the main reasons I was thinking about a new lens, even to just see what kind of difference it made in my photos. 200-300 was the short term, I'll start looking at saving for something a bit bigger in the medium term. Thanks!

get the 50mm f/1.8 and you'll know why your 18-55 has bad optics.

I think you'll want F2.8, otherwise there's not a lot of point upgrading. Using the search feature of my website the only lenses that seem to match your criteria and offer an F2.8 aperture are Canons 50 1.8 and 28mm F2.8 primes. If you want a zoom you'll have to increase your budget. The Tamron 28-75 F2.8 is good, just maybe not wide enough. The Sigma 18-50 F2.8 and Tamron 17-50 F2.8 are good too.

My suggestion: keep using the kit lens until you find you really need something better.