What's the Best method for creating website?

[GoWebGo]

Hi, newbie here. I think the world of websites are very cool. I want to get into building websites for personal reasons and wouldn't mine parlaying this into professionally.

For those in the know, what is the best software out there for website creations. I'll eventually get into the development side, but I want to concentrate on the websites aspect of it first. Just from what I've read, it seems that Adobe's Dreamweaver is highly recommended. Also, I got recommendations from some folks that it is best to start out coding in HTML and start from there so that I don't get spoiled. I'm on a Mac G4 dual 1GHz 1.5G SDRAM with 2 120 GB HDs. I do have a old copy of Dreamweaver but I'm not sure if I need/should buy the latest.

This is what I want to do (for now):

I just want to be able to display some graphics, e.g., pictures of movie titles and some commentaries next to them. I don't know but this doesn't sound too demanding. I've heard/seen some website creation softwares that might be able to do this quick, but it seemed quite limited, e.g., you have to use templates, etc. I'm very visually oriented so I'd like to have more control then just using a template and replacing texts. Do I need to learn HTML and start writing code that way or can I use something like Dreamweaver and start there? Help.

[gaz545]

looks like no one else ventures here, and i've not been active in a while.

but in your situation the software doesn't really matter ( that is depending on which route you take)

you have two options, the WYSIWYG route, or the coding route.

for the first i would suggest any version of dreamweaver, as it will give you more freedom that most other applications in it's class. any version will do, i would suggest sticking with your current (that is depending on the version number)

on the coding point of view, anything your comfortable with will do, even if it's textedit, doesn't make a difference at the end of the day.