ant instalation help

I know theres an ant section but I figure I post here since I'm as newbe as a newbe gets. So, new I haven't even been put in the package yet.
anyways, I'm learning java and plan to do the following project. I want to be able to access an excell file from a website and make the pertinent changes. You know change the data and what not. I read in another website that this can be acomplish by using various classes and pakages in something call POI or something. Anyways, the website said that I need to download ANT first. So, I did and thats as far as I got. I read the instructions on the Ant website and this website.this is what it says to do.
1) Update your classpath to point to the ant.jar file which is found in the ant/lib directory. According to the Ant installation documentation:
2) Next, add the bin directory to your path. Set the ANT_HOME environment variable to the directory where you installed Ant.
To put my question simply what are they talking about. what class path and what is this set up the ANT_HOME thingamajig?
I'm curently using netbeans IDE. I notice that a lot of websites discuse the use of the command line. Well, I don't see no comand line. Can anybody help?

For information and steps on setting the CLASSPATH, I recommend taking a look at our wiki page on the subject.
I'm moving this thread to the Ant forum...