How to get better at chess: Where to start?

So as of yesterday I decided that these next three and a half months of holidays off school I can spend learning something new, and this could be chess. I started today, and I watched videos, and played a few games, eventually I learnt to beat the computer on level 1 and 2 on chess titans, but couldn't pass level 3. I learnt a few moves but I'm still hopless at spotting them, and I'm hopeless at developing pieces, and I can never get it right. I'm a patient person, but I just need to know where to start, what to do, activities to do, what to learn. Please nothing I would need to pay for I'm not getting to that stage yet.

Thanks. :) 

Welcome to chess, I stared a few months back and I really enjoy it. Id probabaly say to start off just play games on here and see how you go, learn from your mistakes too which is what i tend to do alot of.

I've gotta say that the Tactics trainer and the lessons on here are really really good. They cover everything, and by buying membership here it's for less than a few decent chess books and you get much more out of it. Become friends with people on here, and look in the forums, you might find some good idea for your own game!

Best of luck!

Post a game here, that will give ppl an idea of what level you are & ideas of where you need to focus

Oh & welcome to Chess

Tactics is d base so try 2 spend as much time on learning tactics n patterns becoz at the end how much pattern u know n can remember. ...helps 2 to become stronger player then what you are currently.

Thanks a lot everyone. @Tactical Battle how do you reccomend learning these tactics and patterns?

You can do tactics on tactics trainer on chess.com. You can also do them on chesstempo.com

Stop while you still can!

@Mark_selims...chess tempo is good option n if you're playing from mobile like me then there are lot of free Anroid apps of tactics. ..:-)

I was trying to find an old site that broke tactics into basic themes and gave puzzles to work on which is really useful for the beginner... but I couldn't find it :(

After a little searching I found this site:

http://www.checkmatesusa.com/online-resources/chess-puzzles/

It doesn't give the answers but other than that it's what I was looking for.  If you don't want to mess with downloading a chess program to check your answers I'm sure you'd get a quick reply by posting a topic on these forums asking for the solution.

So back to the original question, where to start?  You'll want to know the opening basics, the basic tactical themes (like fork, pin, skewer, removing the defender) and basic endgames (how to mate with queen vs king, with rook vs king, maybe some elementary pawn endgames too.

Here's for openings:
http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening

And for endgame just google "mate with king and queen" and "mate with king and rook" and there will be videos or articles you can read (it's not too hard).

I think this may have been the site wafflemaster was looking for.

http://www.chesstactics.org/

After absorbing all the information on that site, I would recommend reading Dan Heisman's Novice Nook articles.

For starters play standard chess like 30 min Standard for your level, not blitz or bullet, also

Just stick to opening principles and and don't study openings until you get more chess knowledge.