From "Site Settings" at the top menu of your site, click "Go To Site Administration" to access the following tools and options.  Be aware that not all links will be available, depending on the configuration of your site during the Create process.

Users and Permissions

• Manage permission inheritance: Recall that when you created your site, you specified whether to use the same permissions as the 'parent' site.  This link allows you to change that setting.  It is sometimes helpful to initially inherit permissions so that a majority of the administrators and contributors are defined, and then change to unique permissions and add or remove individuals on the basic list.
• Manage users: This is the same link as from "Site Settings" and allows you to add or remove persons and notify them of their authority.
• Manage Site Groups: Rarely needed, the basic four site groups can be modified for specific purposes.  For example. the personal web site area has a special group "Self Service" that grants any authenticated user the ability to create a site, but have no other privileges in that area.
• Manage anonymous access: A site can be wide open for the casual visitor, or restricted to authenticated users.  For example, the HR and Accounting areas are restricted.
• Manage cross-site groups: Rarely needed, you can create a group of people who share privileges across a set of sites.  For example, there is a group named "AllSitesAdministrators" that have administrative authority to all sites.
• Manage access requests: If a visitor has been authenticated, but is not a user of the area they are trying to access, they can send an email to request access.  This link allows you to change the email of the person who is notified of the request.

Management and Statistics

• Save site as template: If you have designed a site that is useful and can be reused, you can save the configuration for later use.  The top-level administration menu allows browse and delete of unneeded templates.
• View site usage data: Not currently enabled.
• Manage sites and workspaces: This is a handy view of all the areas that have been created under the site.   It is a simple list that allows you to navigate to a site or create a new one.
• Manage Web Discussions: If the site has a great deal of discussion groups, this link allows you to list and manage the areas in one place.
• Manage user alerts: This is a view of all users and the alerts they have registered.
• Change regional settings: This page allows you to change language, time zone, and other location settings.  Once set it is not generally used again.
• Delete this site:  Self explanatory.  Sharepoint is a very powerful and flexible tool, but because it is easy to create new spaces, a site can quickly get out of control.  Please delete sites that you no longer need, such as special meeting or document spaces, so the site does not become unmanageable.

Site Collection Galleries

This section of site administration is only available at the top-level site.

• Manage Web Part gallery: Add and edit custom web parts that have been purchased or built to provide special functionality
• Manage list template gallery:  Upload or edit list templates, which were created for special purposes.  Custom lists, their columns and views, can be saved and reused on different sub sites.
• Manage site template gallery:  Upload or edit sites that were saved as templates for reuse.

Site Collection Administration

This section contains only one item when configuring a sub site:

• Go to Top-level Site Administration: this is a navigation link for the convenience of the site administrator, and is not of use to the casual site user.

At the top level site, this section contains the following links for the administrators known as Site Collection Administrators:

• View site hierarchy: View a list of all sites and sub sites.  Useful for periodic review and clean-up of abandoned or obsolete sites.
• View site collection usage summary: Descriptive statistics on space, users, and activity.
• View storage space allocation: Statistics on space usage by site and library.  Useful for determining what areas are using up space at a concerning rate.  
• View site collection user information: A comprehensive list of all users defined to the site and subsites. 
• Configure connection to portal site: Sharepoint Portal Services is a Microsoft product that has not been implemented, and so this link is of no use.