Intro

Hello, I'm Nikki.  I'm a self-professed nerd-girl who enjoys playing Minecraft... A lot.
It's quite an addiction as most other players of the game would understand even if they don't admit it themselves.  One of the things I find really entertaining about the game is redstone and the machines and circuits you can make with it.  At the same time, one of the things I found really FRUSTRATING about redstone is it didnt seem to be well documented, and when I began learning how to use it I was overwhelmed by frustrated complicated explanations and countless boring incomprehensible Youtube video tutorials.  It took me a while, and lots more patience than I knew I had, but I eventually got the hang of it.  In fact, it's sometimes astonishing how much redstone emulates real world DC electronic circuits.
  As this is post number one, the beginning of this blog, There isn't a lot here yet.  However with time I intend this blog to be just what the title says: a guide to redstone that's easy for all people to understand and begin building their own creations using the wonderful red dust we find so deep below we call redstone.  Just for the point of providing information, I'll also try to point out some of the similarities between redstone and real-world electronics.
  Enough of this intro now, lets get into the basics.  And by basic I mean REALLY basic, like What is redstone in the first place?
  Redstone is found deep underground. DEEP underground. I mean 10 blocks above bedrock deep.  If you're relatively new to minecraft, go back up to the surface and play around a bit to get comfortable with the game in general before you come back down here with us, you will want to be familiar with a lot more of the game before you try your hand at redstone.
You find Redstone as blocks of Redstone Ore near bedrock level.  You need an Iron Pickaxe or better to mine it (you can break the block with less, but you won't get the redstone drop).  If you give that ore block a good whack it will start glowing, which if you are as easily distracted and amused as I am, It's pretty cool. When you bust up this ore block it will bestow upon you the goodness of 4 or 5 pieces of Redstone Dust.  Pick up these little dust piles and you will have the most basic element of redstone circuitry, which you will need quite a lot of if you want to build bigger and more complex machines.

Review time:
The most basic part of redstone circuitry is Redstone Dust 
and you get it by busting up Redstone Ore 
by using and Iron or better pickaxe

You can build more complex components with raw redstone dust, which will be discussed later.  The most common use for redstone dust is to put it directly on top of blocks.
You can place redstone dust on top of blocks by right-clicking just like you place any other block.  You can put redstone dust on most solid blocks, but some blocks don't like redstone very much and won't let you put it down no matter how politely you ask it.  When you put redstone dust on blocks it forms a wire.
I will talk about wire in the next post, that's enough of this one.
Thanks for reading and please stay tuned for more updates.  This blog is starting with the basics and working up gradually, so keep reading to find out more exciting things you can do with this amazing stuff!