Intro

This post my official salute to the chess community.

Now, a little about myself. I'm from Romania, but I'm currently studying Computer Science in the United States. I learned chess at a very young age, probably before 5, when I got my first chess board. It was a matter of curiosity for the pieces more than anything else. They were made of some alloy and were actual figures of the pices, not traditional.

I learned chess from my father and my grandfather and have played against them countless times, mostly getting check mated. I did learn a lot from them though and it helped increase my attention span.

I'm a casual player (really casual) and find myself going back to chess every now and them. Sometimes, like now, I find the urge to play a game or solve a chess puzzle. Because there aren't any players around me I have to come to online communities like chess.com. Unfortunately, most of the players here seem to be more experienced than me and although I won the 2 or three games that I've played, they've been mostly lucky guesses. I never studied any chess strategies and I mostly play from the gut.

My question to the community is this: How can I improve my play style? Is there I place I can start going over basic strategies, or not even that, but rather guidelines for developing my pieces in the opening, mid- or end-game? 

Cheers to everyone!