Over time, I have been gathering links to various main SharePoint resources on the web. I usually share it with my students in classes and at conferences. I’m listing them below. Hope it helps some people out there. If you know of additional resources that have helped you in the past, please list them below in the comments area. 
Starting (share)point - SharePoint explained plainly
Check out the main SharePoint Website from Microsoft. It's good to know their current positioning and offerings around SharePoint. Then check out some success stories shared by Microsoft at Discover SharePoint. These always help understand the opportunities around the SharePoint ecosystem.
To get started on SharePoint, you might want to take some formal SharePoint training. There is really no substitute for hands on training if you can afford the time and expense. I would recommend looking at the available classes here.
Can't travel or need on-demand training? You can also find on-demand video tutorials on VisualSP site for quick show-and-tell. Also, additional tutorials available on Microsoft's Channel 9 site and YouTube of course. Consider picking up some SharePoint books as well.
When working with SharePoint, you will have questions that you just want to go and ask someone. The best places to ask those questions are the SharePoint Forums and the Office 365 Yammer network. Microsoft employees and MVPs are often in these forums answering questions.
Looking for great articles and news on SharePoint and Office 365? Join ITUnity and Bamboo Solutions communities.
Sometimes you just need immediate help with a project. For those times, look into hourly SharePoint remote consulting/mentoring by SharePoint industry experts.
To try out scenarios, create prototypes and demos, use the completely pre-built SharePoint 2010 environment created using CloudShare (remember that this one is using SharePoint 2010 on-premises version). Here are some visuals on exactly what's in this cloud-based virtual machine.
For SharePoint 2013 on-prem, check out the 'no-code' CloudShare template
OR
Deploy the whole virtual machine in your own environment (if you have the hardware available). These are independently created by individuals in the SharePoint community and not officially supported by Microsoft:
OR
Get a trial for Office 365 Enterprise (includes SharePoint Online) for 30 days. No credit card required so you can do this as many times as you need.
There are a few certifications for SharePoint as well. These will give you the credibility you need in your role.
It's hard to decide which SharePoint vendor to go with when it comes to SharePoint consulting, training, products and other services. Check out the SharePoint Reviews site for some recommendations from the community.
Attending a SharePoint conference is a great way to really dive into it all. Check out this page for info on regularly held SharePoint related conferences.
Got a tip or a resource not in the list above that you would like to share? Put them in the comments below. I'll be periodically adding more to the list above. Thanks!
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