Every After Effects user should bookmark the Region of Interest blog by Todd Kopriva of Adobe. Todd was the documentation lead for several versions, and now is very active in tech support. His blog always has the most recent information on bug fixes, bug avoidance, best practices, and learning resources.
Todd recently helped create a learning resource of his own: a free series of After Effects Frequently Asked Questions videos on video2brain. These answer several of the most common panics users (both beginners and nont-beginners) may experience. One caveat: Most involve Preferences, which is under the Edit menu on the Windows machine Todd is using in these videos; on the Mac, prefs are found under the After Effects menu. Other than that, they’re short, clear, and to the point – well worth the very minimal time required.