most of what I learned was from the tutorials,I would download & print them.  I kept a list near by as I learned the keyboard stuff.  once I had some basics, I would just go in & pull some verts around & see what happens. I'm not at all familiar w/ the game stuff.  I tried yafray some but prefer the internal renderer, it's just easier for me. I've played w/ a few other 3d apps. I felt they were like corel,"clunky". I personally like the creative freedom blender gives me. very fast & efficient. once you "get it" your gonna like it.   I've purchased both manuals [mostly to support blender]   I personally found them difficult to follow. maybe just cause I'm old.  [I found the graphic work in the 2.0 guide some of the best  I've seen] 

gladly.............like?

hey, thanx again, but to be honest with you, it all looks a little beyond me right now. I'm still stumbling around in 2.43, getting the feel of it. I've worked mostly in 2.37 with animations recently & most of those work much differently if at all in 2.43. also I'm finding that alot of my older blend files will need alot of tweeking just to get a decent render.
P.S. I checked out your free stuff site also,cool................thanx again..............johnd 

ok,that's weird....I just happen to have a mouse w/ a wheel, usually I have gone through the trouble of finding 3 button mouses [mice?] & buying 3 at a time,because they were usually the cheapest made & hard to find, just because of blender.  the wheel, for me, never felt as steady..... the wheel seems to do all sorts of things in combination w/ Ctrl or Shift.   all new to me. lotsa' new stuff to learn it seems. thanx again..........johnd 

yep, it's Ctrl-Q, thanx.....ever since I first used blender, Ctrl+ middle button=closer when you moved the mouse forward & farther when you moved the mouse back.[2.37 works that way] since 2.41 it has been opposite. I assumed "invert zoom" which is in the top panel [pull down] "view & controls" [swap mouse zoom controls,when moused over] would reverse that & go back to the older way that I was more familiar with. but it doesn't seem to do anything. it's something I can get used to, just sometimes when I get working fast, I forget & zoom the damn thing right out of site & have to stop & re orientate where the heck I am! ........thanx again.....johnd

hey, "ysvry", thanx for the tip. I did a search over at the forums & came up with an optimized 2.43. I loaded it & so far it seems to be working pretty good. the invert zoom doesn't seem to work, which is annoying just because of what I'm used to for so long & "Q" doesn't give me a "Quit blender". but it seems like it wants to work. I haven't really given it a work out yet, but this is better than nothing. I'll have to try an optimized 2.44 when someone builds one..........thanx again.........johnd
P.S. I have a G-Force graphics card, could that have been the problem?

downloading isn't my problem. the program don't work once I have it. I have spybot. yes I'm still dial-up. speed is not a problem either.
P.S. I have some great animations that I've synched up w/ a music program I have called "fruityloops" [inspired by animusic]...do I need a site of my own to link to?...I had a site for a few years "johndsigns" but I let it go because of little traffic, it was mostly blender stuff.....thanx.........johnd