the texture mapping tutorials that come with maya are good. start with those and you'll get the basic idea and then you can figure most things out from there
eventually you'll figure out when to use a monochrome map and where you can use a map with the 4 colour and alpha channels
that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"
Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D