Bash your head on this..

Uhm.. Bash scripts are really great.. But sometimes you just forget how to do even the simplest thing (like how do you set an else condition :P). So here's a very good and simple starting point at:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html. That should be able to bring you up to speed till you start writing whole apps in bash.. ;)