Good way to learn Ruby On Rails???

So...I'd really, really love to expand my marketability and learn Ruby On Rails, but what's a good way to do it??

It seems all the books on RoR get mediocre reviews.

A couple of tech headhunters recommended CoadeAcademy.org, but 1) they meet during the day, and I have a day job, so that's a no-go, and 2) at $6000, that's extremely prohibitively expensive!

Where I'm enrolled in grad school they have a Ruby On Rails program for professional web developers, but 1) they meet three nights a week and it conflicts with my existing schedule, 2) you have to be an experienced professional programmer (I'm not -- I've only done web programming freelance), and 3) there's a nonrefundable application fee to get into the Ruby On Rails program.

Why is this such an elitist thing to get into???

Anytime I want to learn something new Lynda.com is my first step. It's not going to give you the ultimate details on a topic like Ruby on Rails, but it will give you a good head start.

There's a free course on codeschool called Rails for Zombies which I've heard good things about. I've been looking to get into Ruby (and then RoR) for a few weeks now but I've not had chance. This course is one of my many bookmarks waiting to get visited! I've also seen this recommended a few times but, as with the previous link, I can't vouch for how good it is because I've not read it yet. Do you have any prior knowledge of Ruby? Either way, let me know if you find anything really useful. Good luck!