1. Do I need a CMS? and what should I use?
You do not necessarily need a CMS and in many cases it would be overkill. This would inevitably take you sitting down and deciding exactly what you want on your site. Do you need a message board? Do you need users to be able to login? Do you need a chatroom? Will you need to allow others to edit your content? Will you mostly be working with your content online? If not to these major items, you may not need a CMS at all – especially where a simple site or blog would suffice. I would suggest Drupal or Joomla if you use one simply because they are free and have excellent communities. Lighter than that I would suggest a simple news system like cutenews [ cutephp.com ]. This will allow you to create a blog like site, but no where near the bloat of the others.

2. What do I get to ptotect all my images, do I disable the right click also ? This is important to me..
Hopefully this doesn’t upset you – but is your site for you or your users? If it is for your users I will say that disabling right click generally bothers many people, and if someone really wants something on your site – they will find a way to get it. It would probably be better to watermark your images instead.
However, if you still want to go with it you would use Javascript. An example script is here: http://www.codelifter.com/main/javascript/norightclick1.html

3. Iam learning MYSQL now and Joomla, but I dont like Joomla, it has too much stuff I dont need!!

I agree that it probably will – for many people. However, it is definitely good when it is used for the places that it should be. For your case see my first answer on alternatives.

4. PHP, this is my problem, can I learn this if I focus???

Sure. People can learn a lot if they focus. However, learning the basics will not necessarily teach you all of the ins and outs – such as keeping your site secure, optimizing your site, making your site accessible, making your site usable, learning the other languages that complement it, etc. If your business is not in the business of making websites, you could use some of the free open source scripts, or hire someone. Allow them to do it so that you can continue working on what you do.
However… if you want to learn it still on your own, php.net is hands-down the best place to learn it. Other than that there are numerous communities, message boards, and books that will send you in the right direction. You will also need to learn MySQL later down the line, css, – and possibly javascript.

5. Where do I build my site on, notepad ? ( I tried its too hard, is there something easier to use for me?)

Notepad is GREAT for HTML and CSS. For PHP there are quite a few free editors out there that I have heard are good. However, I use Zend PHP (which is not free). For a free editor you are going to want to do a search for "free PHP IDE". This page lists some editors with the first being free – I didn’t look through the rest: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-php-ide/index.html .

6. I dont know what else I need for this site, I need a shopping cart too, but should I BUY one to have it ? Like X CART?

You don’t necessarily have to buy one. However, buying one also ensures the support you may need now or later down the line. The last thing you want to happen is something to your shopping cart – especially with users information.
However, there are plenty of great open source shopping carts available such as OsCommerce [ oscommerce.com ] and Zen Cart [ http://www.zen-cart.com ]. A great place to look for more is hotscripts.com under PHP.

7. Also, This is my main question: When I BUILD my site HOW do I save it so I dont have to worry about it being ONLY on teh hosting site ? Is this a good reason to buy a cart too ?

I don’t really understand this question, but from what I understand… You would have it on both your computer and on your hosting site. You create the site on your computer and then upload it to your host. Unfortunately unless you are running a local web server you will not be able to have the scripts on your computer. The best thing to do in this case is to make backups through your hosts control panel and save them on your desktop. As for buying the cart, either way it will be hosted by your host or by the cart owner. This really comes down to trust, what you think may happen in the future, and security.

8. CAN I do this myself if I FOCUS? I have never made a site before? PLEASE SAY YES!!!!!!

Sure! However, I would start off with a non-dynamic site with pages that you create in an editor. If you need nothing but a contact form or online store – there are many online that you can find to allow you to focus on your business instead of focusing on your website.

9. I was thinking should I get soemome to build teh backend and I do the rest, is that easier maybe , and how much would that cost me?

It would be cheaper than them doing the entire site. How much it would cost you? Well, that depends on exactly what you want. Do you want them to build the store from scratch? You would be looking in the thousands. Do you want them to add a store that is already online? 200 – 1000. There are a lot of factors in deciding the price.
Ultimately – write out what you want, what you want it to look like, and then estimate the time it will take you to learn the languages and weigh the benefits.
References :

And yes, you CAN do it.
References :

1) A CMS is helpful if you have dynamic content and need to be updating your content often. It does just make management generally a lot easier.

There are plenty of CMSs to choose from. Check out OpenSourceCMS to try out demos of all the popular ones…
http://www.opensourcecms.com/

As you’ve probably already found out though, most of them just never quite work how you want them to, or have too many features you don’t need (and often lack that one feature that you do need)!

This is why writing your own based around the exact needs of your website is often very beneficial. It can take a long time to make, but in the long run it makes managing the site easier. Its also easier to add more features and expand something that is your own. CMSs like Joomla have a vast codebase and tweaking this can be daunting to people not acquainted with its structure, even to professional programmers and developers!

So… building your own?
You’re throwing yourself in at the deep end, but if you’re determined I don’t see why you can’t manage it. Most people’s first websites are little single-page HTML things, so there would be some level of bragging rights associated with… "I made my first website, and I wrote my own custom content management system in PHP from scratch!"

If you do manage this though, I would at least find someone experienced to take a look over your code and find any security problems. If you’ve never coded a web app before, it can be easy to not see security holes and problems.

But for a shopping cart, I would buy one! Maybe get the shopping cart, or a shop system, then build your own CMS based around it?

So yes, learning PHP and MySQL is all you should need if you want to do this.

Notepad can be all you use, but it can be a lot easier to keep track of things if you have a lot of open files by using something like Notepad++ or Crimson Editor…
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/

These are designed for coding and have more features than Notepad. They allow you to have lots of files open in tabs, and they also do syntax highlighting.

Install a WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL + PHP) server stack that you can use as a local development environment. You can develop and test your website on your computer without having to be constantly uploading to hosting, etc.

XAMPP is really easy to install and has everything automatically configured so you can immediately start using PHP and MySQL on your local computer. Just save all your files within the htdocs folder and access them through your browser by going to localhost (or 127.0.0.1).

http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Your idea of having someone build the backend is also a good one. Having the backend and database already in place would guide you with building the rest, as you would have to base it around the existing database tables and such. Structuring someone thing completely from scratch could be very daunting.

You could also persuade someone to write some functions for you that you could just pull up when you were writing the front-end, even if they were just to perform the necessary database query and give the variables to you in PHP, just to save you the hassle of fiddling with database queries.

I really don’t know to be honest.
Web development can be daunting and usually people asking questions like this wouldn’t even know what MySQL or PHP is, but it sounds like you’ve been researching a lot and you’re determined, so there’s no reason why you could learn as you were going along.

Just remember, get someone to check it before you go live! Even if you have no problem learning PHP very quickly, chances are you will make some security mistakes.
References :

1. Do I need a CMS? and what should I use?

2. What do I get to ptotect all my images, do I disable the right click also ? This is important to me..

3. Iam learning MYSQL now and Joomla, but I dont like Joomla, it has too much stuff I dont need!!

4. PHP, this is my problem, can I learn this if I focus???

5. Where do I build my site on, notepad ? ( I tried its too hard, is there something easier to use for me?)

I dont know what else I need for this site, I need a shopping cart too, but should I BUY one to have it ? Like X CART?

Also, This is my main question: When I BUILD my site HOW do I save it so I dont have to worry about it being ONLY on teh hosting site ? Is this a good reason to buy a cart too ?

CAN I do this myself if I FOCUS? I have never made a site before? PLEASE SAY YES!!!!!!

Thanks so much!!! I truly apprecaite all your help

PS. I was thinking should I get soemome to build teh backend and I do the rest, is that easier maybe , and how much would that cost me?