I've recently started playing as well, I second that http://www.guitartricks.com/guide.php is a good place to start, I'm making good progress through the lessons and it's easy to pop into the forums and whine if you ever get stuck. 4 days into learning and I can see I'm already getting a lot faster at hopping around the fret board (and yes, my fingers are going red and numb! :rolleyes: ).

Just resist skipping any lessons to get onto more interesting stuff and play each part tons of times until you feel confident with it. It's also worth browing the net for some easy short tracks to play, nursery rhymes, happy birthday and things just to get you into quickly reading tabs and give you a bit of variation (this is my only problem with the guide, it does kick ass but there isn't a vast variety of tabs in each section, even without videos/music a few more simple tabs for both electric and acoustic styles would be nice).