hello there,

i am an absolute beginner, so my question might seem rather silly.  i
just installed ruby 186-25 using the windows installer- my computer is
windows xp.

my first step was to follow the "ruby in twenty minutes" tutorial.  at
a certain point they tell you to close the fxri consule in order to
create a ruby program on a file.  so far so good.  they then tell you
to run the file by typing "ruby ri20min.rb"
here is the tutorial:  http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/3/

that is all fine, but my question is: where do you type that command
line?

another tutorial i was looking at said to find out what version you
have installed to type "ruby -v" in the shell - but what exact is the
shell?  the unix shell?  if i am using windows xp where do i find that
exactly?

i know this may be a really silly question, and i bet it's so simple
that they don't post this information anywhere.  i'm almost
embarrassed to ask.  but i'd appreciate a kick start here- thanks! :D

-m