Yes, yes, and YES!  I disagree JK.

The starter kit is a great way to familiarize your self with dotnetnuke. 

Because with the starter kit you don't need a web server or SQL server.  Visual Web Developer is running the site locally for you and you can build the site on your laptop....I've built and have numerous clients build their site this way.  And on Scott Gutherie's Blog he as a great tutorial and links to a tool that can pull the DB off of SQL Express and put it on a full fledge SQL Server and web server....I've done this many times and it works....I don't use the functions in VWD to build the site, I just use the casinni engine within VWD to develop a site. (CTRL + F5 - after loading the project in VWD)

This works very nice especially when you want to demo a site, as you don't need web access to your development server.

Want to get started right away with just a laptop, then SQL Express and Visual Web Developer and the 4.90 starter kit is the only way to go.

Here the links to these tools:

http://www.codeplex.com/sqlhost/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Database%20Publishing%20Wizard

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/01/11/tip-trick-how-to-upload-a-sql-file-to-a-hoster-and-execute-it-to-deploy-a-sql-database.aspx

Hope this helps
Jerry

Well, given that I've already followed the first advice I received and have gotten it to work (I think) is there anything I can do now to go the Install Kit route?  Will that give me more modules, skins, and containers?

Brian - Missed your last post as I clicked the wrong icon to go to the next page on my posting.  I'll try to add the modules and skins.  Also, do I need to Ctl-F5 everytime I load the site in VWD to launch DDN?  Is that the correct way?  It seems to work, but I didn't know if i needed to build every time.