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I'm new to Pathfinder, never played 3.5 either, so I'm totally new to this rule set. I'm making my first character, and have a couple of questions about skills.
First, the core rulebook says that when you take a level in a favored class, you get your choice of an additional hit point or skill rank. Does that include first level during character creation? Or just when you advance a level of an existing character?
While we're on the subject, do you choose a hit point or skill rank each time you gain a level in that class, or is it a one time choice that applies to every level gained over the life of your character? In other words, can you sometimes take skill ranks and sometimes take hit points, or do you decide up front which one you'll gain every time you level up?
Also, I see that you can't have more skill ranks in any particular skill than your total level. But can you add more than one skill rank to the same skill at once? ie If I don't train a skill at level 1, will I be able to give it two skill ranks when I advance to level 2? Or can you only add one skill rank at a time to a particular skill?
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For every level in your favored class, starting at first, you gain the choice of a hit point or skill point. You decide at each level which one you take and which skill you put the point into. You can put as many skill points as you want in skill at level up, so long as don't have more than your total character level.
Yes, you get your favored class bonus at level 1 when you create your character.
You can pick each level whether you want an extra skill point or an extra HP (or an alternate favored class bonus, if there is one for your race/class.) You can pick all HP, all skill points, or any combination.
You can put multiple skill points in the same skill after level 1. Something to consider is that some skills might need to be taught, or have an explanation for why you're learning them. If you're a big dumb fighter with an Int of 8 and suddenly you know how to speak Aklo (from putting a skill point into Linguistics) while you haven't been in a city or near anyone that speaks Aklo, that's a little weird. This is completely flavor-based and up to the GM, I don't think there's an actual rule anywhere that says you need to be "trained" in a skill in order to put a rank in it. But, for example, my character (a witch) recently took the time to learn Polyglot because she knew she was going to be venturing into an area where Common isn't spoken very much. So while she was in a large city with people who speak both Common and Polyglot, she took the time to research the new language. In game terms, that translated to me putting a point into Linguistics when she leveled up.
It's every level, including first.
Every time you get a level in your favored class you can choose. I myself tend to bounce back and forth (I like having skills, but early on hit points are usually higher priority, or if I roll terribly on the hit die).
There are actually more options for the favored class based off your race+favored class in the Advanced Players Guide. IE, a human sorcerer can learn a new spell 1 level lower than his highest known instead of a HP or SP.
You can add more than 1 rank at a time as long as you don't go over your hit die/level (same thing for a character). So yes, you can have a level 7th character suddenly throw 7 ranks into something he wasn't even a novice in before.
History Lesson: The favored class mechanic has been tried and tried again throughout versions of DnD, as a method of encouraging focusing on a single class (or inversely discouraging multi-classing). The last thing DnD tried was giving you an XP penalty if you had multiple classes that were several levels apart... like 15%. The math was tedious. PF decided it was better to reward focusing, rather than make a mechanic that punished.