Website Software for Venturing Out on Your Own:
frontpage
Microsoft's Frontpage Site - You can learn all about Frontpage and download a free trial at Microsoft's site to see how you like it. Frontpage website software has gotten a bad rap in the past, but has come a long way, and continues to improve. Hard core programmers and web developers usually look at it like it's software for people who want to play at web building. ( So what's wrong with playing? )
I prefer to look at it like software with training wheels. Sure you can learn how to build webpages, but why not use something that can get you started right away? Frontpage makes doing a lot of complicated things easier for the non-programmers out there. So what? Just because you don't want to spend days on end, and month after month learning to hand code a website, doesn't mean you shouldn't have the joy of building your own!
That said, not all things you do in Frontpage will work on all servers, and not all scripts out there will work with Frontpage. So start at the beginning and just go step by step. I'll bet you have that website up and running before you know it!
Outfront - a Microsoft FrontPage learning community. If you're going to be using Frontpage, you'll want to bookmark this site. It is full of tips and tricks for web design and building. Much of it can be used regardless of the website software you are using! So check it out.
AccessFP - this is probably the ultimate resource list for resources for working with Frontpage.
golive
Adobe's Golive Site - Free tutorials and other downloads that user's share, and also you can download a trial version of the website software to check it out. Golive is my choice for web design because the user interface is very easy to use, it's intuitive, and you can still do your own hand coding if you choose, which you will choose to or need to do eventually if you get really involved in it! I'm a die hard Adobe fan, I have most of their software, but I have one gripe.
They don't promote it enough, therefore there aren't enough people out their providing support for it in the form of plug-ins and add-ons, or offerring tutorials. You'll find in a lot of the web design forums Frontpage and Dreamweaver get mentions and tips and tricks all the time, and not one word about Golive. That in itself is a big disappointment.
Adobe's Golive Pacific Site - They offer a few more and different tutorials than the American site.
Golive 911 - Tips, tricks, book reviews, events. . . All things Golive website software related.
dreamweaver
Macromedia's Dreamweaver Site - Dreamweaver is THE website software. It is at the top of the heap, and takes a bit more know how to use, and when companies and corporations are looking for web designers, they usually want Dreamweaver experience. It's user interface is a little more difficult than Golive, but not that much.
It's pretty much like everything else, once you get to know it, it's a snap. If you are considering becoming a professional at web building, and will compete in the job market place, then this should probably be your software of choice. No point in spending your time learning something else, to find out that Dreamweaver experience is require for that dream job you're applying for.
Learn That - Free Dreamweaver tutorials.
Dreamweaver Fever - a collection of tutorials and tips pages designed to help you get through those painful hours when things just aren't going your way. Newly added, some tutorials to help you get started with Dreamweaver MX!
About.com's Dreamweaver Resources - A resource of resources for Dreamweaver and web building.
other
TSW WebCoder - this has gotten good ratings from Download.com as well as from their site users. The software is free to use, with one catch. It always seems like there's a catch doesn't it? Anyway, you have to upgrade to the Pro version which you have to pay for, in order to get their user manuals. And if you're a beginner, you'll probably need the manual, because Download.com says it's hard to use many of the provided scripts without the manual.
HTML Kit - HTML-Kit is a full-featured, highly customizable software that can be used to create, edit, validate, preview and publish web pages and scripts. This is an inexpensive website software that's worth taking a look at. It offers all kinds of plug-ins to add even more functionality.
Westciv - Not only do they have a webpage layout software, they also have one for CSS ( Cascading Style Sheets ). They also offer free tutorials which you may find helpful. You can receive them periodically via email, which makes it nice to go a step at a time. If you can't wait for the email classes to come through they also offer an option to purchase the tutorials and download them so you can do them at your own pace.