Long story short, my dad recently passed away leaving a number of guitars of which I now own two.  I had been learning mandolin for about a year (self taught), but now I really want to learn guitar more than ever.  My dad was a wonderful guitarist, and I want to keep his memory by learning his instrument.
I've been practicing some chords and fingerpicking every day, between 1/2 hour and an hour a day.  I know the basics of the instrument and have found some good tab sites online.  I also found some old DVDs I got years ago that had some good basic exercises for increasing finger/hand strength for playing.

So, some quick questions.
Any helpful hints or other things I can do to augment my learning?
Is there a good (preferably free) place online to find scales?
Are scales really worth focusing on that much?
And last but certainly not least, does anyone here make their own tabs for songs?


As I said, I've been learning mandolin for the past year or so, so I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the process of fingerpicking and strumming.  I'm not a total noob, but would welcome any hints and help I can get.  So far, I feel I'm making pretty darn good progress.

Thanks!