My website is hosted by Space2u.
These are free software and services I've found useful in developing my website:
I've implemented the site in php, hand written in the EditPad Lite text editor.
(I've been thinking of buying EditPad Pro, which I use at work, as it has much better support for coding, and the price is very reasonable.)
IrfanView for viewing, cropping and resizing my photos.
W3Schools have CSS, php and HTML reference pages. I like their "Try it yourself" feature, where you can play around with the code in a browser window.
I use Xenu's Link Sleuth to check the site for broken links.