I want to build a personal website. Should I use a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver or FrontPage, or learn the HTML tags by hand? What actually gets you further in the long run?

Learn by hand first. View-source on websites you like and understand what every tag does. Use Notepad or TextPad and an FTP client. WYSIWYG editors generate bloated, unmaintainable code.

W3Schools is the best free resource. Go through the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript tutorials in order. You'll have a working site in a weekend.

Agree on hand-coding first, then use Dreamweaver once you understand what it's generating. Dreamweaver's code view is good for learning — switch between design and code view to see the relationship.