Sky simulator or planetarium software shows a display of the sky on your computer screen.  It's quite easy to move around the sky and zoom in or out by changing the field of view.  You can often pick any arbitrary date in the future or in the past to display.  Most packages have a great search tool that helps you find objects wherever they are in the sky.

The system I use is Starry Night Pro.  Besides the 16 Million stars in its catalog, it has the ability to connect to my main telescope and show exactly what I am seeing in the eyepiece view.  This is great for confirming objects.

Starry Night Pro includes 100 interactive tutorials and has the ability to print sky charts.  It is what I use for the charts on this website.  This is the planetarium software package I recommend.  Enjoy!