Other Links
Well, it's a web-site. I've got to have a few links to things that, being entirely egocentric, I think you'll like simply because I like them.
If you're interested in newsgroups, the uk.* hierarchy is a good place to hang around. Many and diverse topics all, of course, with a UK slant. The hierarchy is "managed" by a committee, though, and has procedures and things you need to be aware of. The uk.* Usenet Homepage is a good place to start, containing lots of documents regarding creation of a newsgroup there, and also the charters of newsgroups in uk.* which have one (all recently created ones).
In a similar fashion, if you use the uk.* newsgroup hierarchy, you'll find that reading the very low volume newsgroup uk.net.news.announce is an invaluable way of keeping up with any major policy changes, or groups being created.
If you want to use newsgroups from Windows then I'd suggest the very good package Turnpike. Compliant with as many known internet standards documents as any other program you can think of, it provides a good, solid, robust way of using the internet and, specifically, newsgroups and e-mail. Some people balk at the interface, but, if that's you, then persevere and there's a very powerful program at your fingertips. It's companion support newsgroup, demon.ip.support.turnpike, provides a good way to ask questions which aren't of a burning nature (because of the delay of a newsgroup) but which you would appreciate a full, detailed answer to - often by one of the programmers, or other employees of Turnpike.
Getting about by train is a devil at the best of times, but the Railtrack web site can help you to find a route, using the Railtrack Timetable pages.
Bishop Vesey's Grammar School was my educational establishment of choice. The site was overhauled from the drab thing it was, to something slightly easier on the eye. The only real downside is that it uses JavaScript, which I warned them about (what with many people turning it off as a security risk). Would they listen? Would they heck as like.
IRC is a great medium for chatting and meeting people. For those of you running Windows, mIRC is a pretty good client, even if it does make up some of the rules as it goes along. If you can lobby for a slightly less harsh set of colours to be used, I'll love you forever.
For people who don't want Bill Gates running their computer, alternative operating systems exist. Whilst not the all-singing, all-dancing Windows vanquishing OS that many would try and present it as, Linux is an alternative to consider. Slightly intimidating for the average user, complex and powerful, it might not be quite what you want, but don't just dismiss it out of hand simply because, unless you go for one of the versions with lots of manuals and things, you can get it almost completely free. For my money (or lack thereof), the Debian distribution of Linux is one of the best. But probably the best thing about Linux is that it has a picture of a penguin as its logo.
Computers and programming can be a daunting task. What you often need, rather than a web-site tutorial, is a book that you can sit down with, going through the examples and not having to be permanently connected to your computer. Whilst catering for a slightly more technical point of view (rather than the "DOS for Stupid People" books), for the areas they do cover, O' Reilly & Associates provide excellent information for beginners, right through to experts. If you ever talk to anyone about a book you've bought from them, make sure you know which animal is on the front cover, because that's how they're often referred to e.g. "Programming Perl" is the Camel Book.
For internet access, my money is obviously with Demon Internet. In these days of free ISPs, it can be hard for people to justify the extra money paid to Demon to carry on with their service. For my money, it's worth it since they do provide extra services compared to other ISPs and I've always found them to be a much better bunch at actually giving a damn about the service.
White Wolf is a role-playing game company based in the US. They've created several very successful role-playing games for "table-top" playing, and also for Live-Action Roleplaying. Most are set in a world known as the "World of Darkness" but a new -ish game, Trinity, is set in a kind of futuristic setting thing.
If you actually want to buy any of the things by, for example, White Wolf, a good place to start is with Wayland's Forge. Fast, helpful and efficient, you can probably find most role-playing things in their catalogue.