There is no easy way of getting over those first steps where your fingers won't do what you tell them to and nothing comes easy. Don't want to sound sanctimonious but with practice every day you'll soon see progress.
As for chords and stuff, you could get yourself a tutoral book (which I never found particularly useful)though it might help with holding the guitar, strumming etc. I prefered learning by trying to play songs I liked. You could go to say http://www.guitartabs.cc/home.php for example and look up the chords for a favorite song. http://www.cyberfret.com/chords/changing/index.php is a nice site on chords and how to learn playing them. Should be enough there to get you started.
Hope this helpful. If you're still having problems give us a shout, AndyP

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