Hey all, I'm a complete newbie to XNA, and a pretty new to C# as well. (I did the 16 beginner's videos available at the start window, but that's about it.) Anyway, I know some basic C#, and now I'm trying to follow the "My first game" tutorial in XNA. (It basically has you draw a sprite, and then make it bounce around the screen. An epic game, I can't wait to finish it, haha!)

Anyway, I'm having trouble drawing a sprite using alpha transparencies. The tutorial/help file tells me to use the Direct X Texture tool, make a mask thing, open up my png on the surface, etc. Anyway, after I did that, it saved itself as a .dds file (A texture or something? Could someone explain what a .dds is exactly?) So now I have the .dds saved into my project. I follow the tutorial to have it draw the sprite, etc. But when the sprite is drawn to the screen, it doesn't have any transparencies. I had a ball sprite, and now its a ball sprite which looks like it leaked its color out into a square, with a white border around it. Could anyone explain what's going on here? I'd really appreciate the help, as I'm really lost in XNA right now, and the help file really isn't helping the sprite problem.

Also, any other random resources for complete XNA beginners would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks a lot guys! : )