Perhaps Satis is the main man here.

It's likely that in around 4 months or so, I will need my own website. The purpose of which is to advertise a product, or line of products. I wont be needing a storefront or any fancy database behind the scenes because it's main purpose will to merely "show off" the products.

So given I may need a site up and running in 4 months time, I reckon if I start looking into it now and put some hours in every week or so, I should be well prepared to build it myself. Right now, I know zero about websites. I know you have to rent the domain name, and i've dabbled in some uberbasic HTML back in school, but other than that I need to be pointed in the right direction.

An acceptable "feel" would be something like this:

http://www.takenterprises.com/

An unacceptble "feel" would be:

http://www.palmer-pursuit.com/cart/

See the difference? One is visually appealing and nice to touch, the other is blocky and ugly. Also, take note that the nicer site doesn't actually do anything special. It just kinda presents a bunch of products to you. This is exactly what I need.

So then, any tips? Are there any templates I can work from? What tools do I need? Where could i rent the domain name from? Which languages are needed? DHTML? Java? Flash?

I don't know much about this, but for performance and simplicity, you might want to stay away from Flash. Also, perhaps this site can give you some inspiration.

If all you have is static pages and that's all your care about, the only language(s) you need is/are HTML and CSS (CSS is just the style sheets). If you don't mind going in and editing HTML to make change to stuff, that's perfect and you can learn the basics in a week or two.

If you're looking to build dynamic sites that you can update from a pretty web interface, that changes. You can either go with a CMS like PHP-Nuke or Drupal or something, or you can learn to hand code. I don't know much about CMSs....google 'free website CMS' or something and see what you can find. I hand code everything, but it's unrealistic to think you can go from no knowledge to building a fully-functional CMS in 4 months.

I guess option 3 would be to hire someone to build it for you. You can afford me, so I'm not fishing.

If you want ultimate control, I'd say go with the flat HTML site. If you want to make it editable and dynamic you can always add that later. If you just want something that works, find a CMS.

As for hosts, there are plenty. If you go with a CMS, make sure the host supports the language... typically it's either .net or php and a single host rarely supports both. Check reviews. I'm with Powweb... it's based in California I think, but there are plenty of Europeans that are hosted there. It's ok...I guess you'd know...occasionally slow, usually fine. If you're marketing to Europe exclusively it may make more sense to get a host that's more local.

Whatever you choose, make sure you clearly design your site from teh get go. Designing a website is not something you can just do as you go along. Sketch it out on paper, build a mockup in photoshop, whatever, just make sure you know exactly what your layout and colors are going to be.