Epic Update

Hi, I just recently got the Samsung Epic for christmas. I know this might be hard to believe, but this is my first personal phone. Every phone I have had has been a work cell with no features of any kind. So I'm a smartphone virgin. I would like to update to latest and greatest. I seen your directions and some of that is blahblah blah to me. And I don't want to mess up my phone. I have 2 questions fro you.
1. Can you make that any easier, for someone that has average compute skills? Or
2. If I wait until the update comes out, who helps you then...Sprint or what?
Thanks.