Using your camera: first things first.
Find your camera owner's manual.
If you can't find it, try and look it up online.
Read it. It will tell you what your camera can do. While you are reading, try doing the things it tells you that you can do with your camera. Set the camera timer and take a photo of... anything. Change the white balance settings if it has them and take the same picture with each different one, so you can look at them and see the difference. This is a great joy of digital photography - you can "waste" as many shots as you like! Find out if you have ISO settings, find out what the hell that means anyhow, and take a few shots at different settings, noticing the differency in how grainy the shots look, or the fact that some come out completely black or completely white.
It doesn't matter if you don't understand a thing yet. You will. It's the things you halfway understand that are important, because you might understand them a little bit more when you are finished. You might even remember them for a little while.
If you hate manuals that much, just take one thing you don't know about your camera - a button or a menu function you don't understand, and look it up in the manual and online. Do this every once in a while and you will gradually get better at being able to use the technical functions of your camera.
