Learning To Use The Arduino, The Basics

I'm planning to start building some stuff with my arduino. I have had it for about 2 years, but I was frustrated with it for the first few weeks because I didn't understand how to program it and use it. So after about a month of trying, I put it on a shelve and forgot about it. Until yesterday I took it out again and began fiddling with it. From messing with it, I figured out how to program it to do basic actions. Here I will show what I figured out so that other beginners can start using their arduino's too. This is done on a iMac using and arduino UNO, so it might may be difficult to follow what I'm doing if you are using something else.

Step 1: Materials

I am assuming you already have a basic knowledge of electronics(what resistors and LEDs are) and that you know how to download the arduino programming application(if you don't, then check out "basics of the arduino(duemilanove)"). Besides that, you will need: 1. Arduino(UNO or duemilanove, preferably) 2. Jumper wires or other wires 3. Resistor(between 150 ohm and 1k ohm) 4. LEDs(any color, but blue and red seem to interfere with each other) 5. Cord for connecting the arduino to the computer 6. Computer(preferably an iMac) 7. Optional breadboard