I'm a newb, so holster the flamethrower

[obiwan]

I'm a newb, so pls holster the flamethrower!

I am interested in uploading a website to a domain name. I want to know the easiest, open-source way to design a simple site and get it live. People talk about Wordpress, which seems a bit confusing to me.
Ultimately, I would like to tool myself up a bit and develop the site to include other functionality like Adsense, perhaps some interactivity, some search functionality, possibly a shopping cart yada yada.
But I need to get started down the path somehow. Can anyone recommend some basic (dummy) type tutorials or resources to get me going? Thankyou.

 

[Barrucadu]

Well, for basic tutorials you don't get much better than www.w3schools.com

 

[edbrown]

Just for reference, you upload a website to a server. The domain name points to the server.