This was originally posted in the thread
What am I doing wrong?, but I thought I'd put it here as well, so it gets read by more people.
I've got a growing number of photography articles on my
Theatre Of Noise blog. These now include
Your Photos -- From Washed Out To Punchy. This covers the basics of light, time of day, polarisers and image editing (adjustment layers, curves, etc.) with links to more detailed articles. I trust it is appropriately targeted at the beginner and is a good and useful starting point.