Where would one start - I would like to buy some and see how it all works, and maybe leave a laptop mining some - but I would prefer to research first - where would I start?
If you want to test out how it works in practice, try playing with instawallet.org , maybe buying small amount of coins and tracking how it works. There are also free bitcoins sites, I don't have much experience with them or either with mining. You can track transactions on blockchain.info
Cheers