Book-wise, you can't go wrong with The Well-Grounded Rubyist (http://www.amazon.com/The-Well-Grounded-Rubyist-David-Black/...) to begin with. I found it a lot more approachable than the Pickaxe book early on.
Good luck, Ruby was my first language and I learned a lot about learning programming languages from that experience.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/55574/learning-ruby-on-ra...
https://www.coursera.org/course/saas
Oh yeah the optional textbook that goes with it is available on kindle for $10.
I wonder what the intentions of these universities are by offering these courses for free. (seriously) hm...
It might just be me being a pessimist, but they have to have some kind of evil motive, right? It seems unheard of that any university offers something for free.
Found this article about Coursera... http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/18/net-us-usa-college...
I guess I'll just enjoy it while it lasts.
For the OP I'd suggest why's guide http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/chapter-1.htm...