What's the best program, software or method of any kind for learning the guitar besides hiring a teacher?

Repetition is key in learning. Go onto any Guitar tab site and search a song. There you will find “tabs” or music written out in simple to follow form. All the “tab” site’s explain how to read them. Start with the Chord tabs, they are easier. The chord finger chart will be on the pages as well. Most songs do not contain more the 3 or 4 chords. So, you will not have to memorize alot at once. Get whatever song you are working on on CD or find a video on yahoo music, etc… Follow along and just keep at it. don’t get frustrated it will take a lot of practice till you memorize the chords. Start off with a country song if you have the stomach for it because they usually are simpler.

Get close with someone who loves to play the guitar.. Eventually, you may never notice that you are slowly learning by simply just listening to them speak and play.. :)

Believe it or not, I find YouTube to be most helpful.

Look up tabs online for some of your favorite songs (i recommend 911tabs.com as it has tabs from various sites listed). Play them, over, and over, and over. Listen to the songs, play it again. Play it with the song if you can. It takes a TON of practice, but it’s how I taught myself.

Past that, your next best method is probably to hire a teacher.

Ok, here’s my tip (various people tried to teach me and failed, so I came up with the method myself and have been a professional for 20 years):

1. learn to play the Em chord (you just need 2 fingers)
2. learn to play the Am chord (3 fingers), now play “Lady In Black” for a week using just these two chords.
3. learn to play the E chord (same as Am, but the fingers are all one position up)
4. learn to play the Dm chord (this can be tricky the first day, but if you really did follow steps 1–3 properly, you’re ready for it)
Now you are ready to play a huge variety of songs that have Am,Dm and E. Or basically any simplified song in any minor key.
5. Learn to play the D and A chords. Again, D might be tricky, but A is fairly easy. You could also learn A7 D7 and E7, which are actually easier than the normal chords. But A is a must.

Now you are ready to play 99% of the songs ever written. You can transpose them if they’re not on A (if you can’t figure it out, just ask anyone with some basic knowledge of music theory). Keep playing using only these basic chords until your fingers are fast and your tips are hard, and you’ll know when it’s time to move on to the next level. You could even stay on these chords for a whole year and play almost anything you want.

6. Now learn G so you can play songs in D
7. Learn C so you can play songs in G, as well as your first 4-chord song: “Stand by Me” (G Em C D)
8. Learn the very hard F chord and play “La Bamba” (C F G) until you get the speed up, now play “Stand By Me” again using C F Am G
9. You are now ready to play in pubs. Or beat Bob Dylan in any guitar competition.
10. Learn the extremely hard B7 chord and play some blues on E. Now you can play in stadiums too, and tell all your friends you know more chords than Mick Jagger and almost as many as Keith Richards ;)

Youtube is actually a great way to imitate private lessons. Next, I would suggest learning some simple scales and running them with a metronome at increasing speeds. This builds dexterity and finger strength as well as establish muscle memory to help your fingers find the frets. Always start out slow and aim for rhythmic perfection rather than maximum speed!