Hi folks,
I am a newbie and only know html and coding in the very basic sense. The few dummie websites I have made look over a decade old. In short, i want to start making some basic info sites and some free websites for small local businesses. I am tired of using just notepad and wanted to know where to start. Honestly, code is fun, but i really just want to focus on design ideas.
Will learning Dreamweaver or another program be a good next step? Or would they be over my head until I atleast become a novice at coding? I am very new any info will help.

Thanks in advance.

If you are talking about just using dreamweaver for WYSIWYG type of page creation I would suggest staying on the track you are on by learning coding. Coding may seem boring compared to designing but relying on dreamweaver or any other editor like that tends to create very sloppy code.
Dreamweaver has a lot of great tools for designers as a production environment, but you will gain more use of it if you still continue understanding the code behind it all IMO, plus you'll be able to validate the code properly, etc.
I am not knocking Dreamweaver, I just think you would be taking a step backwards to move to WYSIWYG editing if you already know some code.
BTW - try Notepad++ and it is far better than basic notepad.(http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm)

I couldn't agree more with Randy, perhaps try that Notepad - Plus. I found it a bit hard to code in Notepad myself Elhewman, I use:

http://www.notetab.com/ntl.php

A good place for code learning is here at Webmaster Talk or

http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp

Thanks for the input. I am still very new at this. Anyway, I am curious as to why having sloppy code skills would matter if I can still get a good final product in dreamweaver. Hope this makes sense. For now I am still going to learn coding while it still is somewhat interesting.

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/html-f...-should-i.html

Sloppy code generally equals sloppy website. It's not professional, it slows down performance and can cause down some nasty errors. Use dreamweaver if you don't care about learning how to code or code properly and just want to pump out basic websites. But if you want to be an expert in this field, ditch dreamweaver till you understand how to build websites by actually writing the code.

Dreamweaver is a better tool for production and if you stick to coding now and later use WYSIWYG editors, you'll be able to take greater benefits with the features Dreamweaver has.