>How would you recommend learning it? I am trying a crash course book, and am obviously having problems with it...
>
>Thanks for the help by the way... I appreciate it.

For example visit www.asp.net (directly from asp.net team). They have a tutorial section.
Witout VS IDE it's hard IMHO (or something else like Web Developer Express, webmatrix,...).
You can find them on asp.net site (and there maybe a million sites offering free tutorial, IDE etc).
Cetin