How do I use Joomla?

[geo]

Ok after a long battle I can get into Admin in Joomla.

What I want to do now is tell Joomla that in a certain path on my computer:

/var/www/Joomla/

There is one subdirectory under Joomla. I want Joomla to put a login and password on that subdirectory and all of it's files - then let me publish a link on the Joomla front page.

I'm trying to do this now and so far Joomla seems to be more devoted to blogs, chat and spewing whatever text I can think up.

I need to be able to manage what gets on the internet, let some things go public, other things only with a good non-hackable login and password.

How do I make Joomla do these things in a nutshell?

Thanks,
geo