Welcome to ladder slasher man you will enjoy it once you understand the basics so I suggest you start by reading this -
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=57524636&f=74I personally started out reading that and also gathering information from players who have played for many of years.
You need to start out by going with a fighter class and melee for a cheap startup build and then from there you can slowly build up gathering more items later for "caster build" and a mage.