This tutorial talked about paths. At first the paths have no appearance, as shown in the first image. They are simply paths. The second image shows that you can use "fills" and "strokes" to add meaning to these images. The rectangle has been filled with yellow and, the stroke tool was used to give it an outline. You can dictate the thickness and/or color of the outline; you can also change the color or the pattern of the fill in the shape. As well as making the outline thinner or thicker, you can control whether there are gaps in the line. You can determine the length of each gap as well as each dash.

This tutorial was on the page: http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=351 >>> link: Fill and Stroke Attributes

This tutorial explained how a line in Illustrator is defined by two anchor points, shown in the upper left image. If you were to use control handles that extend off from anchor points, they will control how the curves are drawn from point to point. You can see this exampled in both the images on the right. In the top right side image, the anchor points are the same as the anchor points as the line on the left, but the control handles dictate taht the line is not straight from one point to the other.

this is from the tutorial page http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=351 >>> "understanding paths" link

screen shot... tutorial on vectors

Watching this tutorial was pretty helpful for me to be able to understand the difference between Illustrator and Photoshop. I've only ever used photoshop before, but it's awesome to be able to see how Illustrator has such better detail. It's always been pretty frustrating trying to deal with pixels in PS.

http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=351 >>> vectors link