Embroidery is fun, brothers are very user friendly
best advice I can give is read the manual
www.emblibrary.com has some neat articles on embroidery and very nice designs
http://www.kenssewingcenter.com/ has stabilizers at good price shipping is always free
www.sewforum.com is another good forum very dedicated to embroidery, there are quite a few from here on that board
There are many free trials for different software, use those until you decide what you want because I got mine and now I wish I would have done research first