diranged

I need to do some serious gardening in my back yard. I have a 50x50ft area of pure weeds. I'd like to turn that into a lawn of some sort. I'm looking for a local place to rent me a big roto-tiller (NOT one of those mini ones that are 12" wide) for a good price. Can anyone recomend a shop?

Also, once its all 'tilled, how do you recomend I get all the weeds out of it. Just rake them up -- or is there a better method? Ideally, I'd like to rototill everything, then plant a series of trees along the fence (three "walls"). For the lawn, I'll most likely just shell out the cash and get Sod because it will help kill whatever weeds might have survived the 'tilling process.

Also, any recomendations for keeping the weeds out until I get the Sod?

(im clearly an amateur gardener.. lol)

---Matt