I don't think Dreamweaver MX is the most appropriate program for a beginner and certainly overkill if the sole aim is to make one or two personal sites - it's also a very expensive solution for a simple problem. But you can download an evaluation to see for yourself.
Much better to start with a more economical solution such as
Coffee Cup - and upgrade later to a more professional software, if you catch the bug...
As for frames, in the web design world they have acquired a 'yesterday' kind of status - if anything you get loads of problems with search engines as they tend to index the individual frames so your potential visitor doesn't get to see the whole effect [unless you use some JavaScript I hasten to add). Much better to use templates, layers/ libraries/css etc, IMHO.
Btw,
Webmonkey is quite useful as a learning tool, IMO anyway.
amofw