Beginning Investing

Investing has been my hot search topic on Google this week and I have been doing lots of reading up on Stocks and Shares ISA's, Tracker Funds, Investment Trust, Unit Trust and everything related. I have had a Share builder account with the Halifax for a few years but because of debt wasn't able to add to it. I haven't found a better share dealer so will stick with the Halifax, they only charge £1.50 commission for each purchase and I also have to pay government Stamp Duty of 0.5%.
I have a small amount of shares in a single company but am planning to switch to a FTSE All Shares Tracker and set up a monthly deposit that I can set and forget. I only have one friend who is investing and he has only invested in a single tracker and that was through a financial adviser so I don't have anyone around me with any real knowledge on the subject.
So far I not impressed with the online sites about investing - if your an absolute beginner with no family contact or history ever in the world of investing - all the information in the world about what funds to buy and what cost to avoid are pointless if you don't know how and where to buy shares, unit trusts etc. But all is not lost; Motley Fool have some great investment advise in articles and also their Discussion Board, with all the what, how and where questions that most sites just don't answer. Too many sites tell you what you should do but not how to do it.

"Yes you should invest" - great but unless you know how to go about it you are never going to invest are you!

Even now I am still not 100% sure on all the abbreviations used to name shares to understand what the share entails. I should go to the library and get one of those books out that explain the financial pages of the newspapers. They should have the break down on the abbreviations used.
Investing is for my long term goal which I should have started decades ago (well I sort of did then stopped a few times over the years) but now it the time to be very serious about it. I am only looking to put in £50 -£100 a month at this time but will increase this once I have sorted out my short and mid term goals.
Are you investing? Did you find it easy to start out?