It's very hard to give general tips, if you come and ask something specific I'm sure many here will be happy to help you. I recommend you read your camera manual in its entirety and play with the camera as much as you can. Also you might want to consider a beginner book on the subject like Digital SLR Cameras & Photography For Dummies it will be $20 well spent. Also, just keep reading the forums here and subscribe to several photography magazines to learn more (subscriptions are cheap). Good Luck!

Luca

Congrats! SLR's will open a whole new world for you.

Try your local libray, bookstores and see if they have books on learning about shutter speeds and aperture ect ect.

I know Porters sells books that should help you.

http://www.porters.com/

Maybe see if your local small collage has a photographers course. Good luck and happy shooting!

I also just bought an XTI.

but I have had a few photographic classes, and the text book they use is a great book, although geared more towards film, 99% of the information still works with digital,

its not a cheap book, it cost me around 80.00 US used, probably because its an older book, the pictures of digital cameras were with 8mb CF cards

Its called Photography 2nd edition by Bruce Warren

I strongly recommend taking classes. Betterphoto.com is a good place for that with many qualified instructors, I just spent a few days in Yellowstone with Lewis Kemper and I'm now looking forward to take his courses online:
http://www.betterphoto.com/courseOverview.asp?cspID=143

Luca

Congrats on the new camera. The XTI is my second canon DSLR, I had the first model as well. Hopefully you do live somewhere that classes are available. I took them in high school and kearned a lot. Books are a good choice if you can't take a class. Also check the internet to see of there are any clubs in your area. most likely there would be somebody there with the same or similar camera.

My best advice though would be to experiment with it. It is a digital camera. No film and you only have to process what you want. in other words, take a lot of pictures and if they do not turn out good just delete them.

Onr thing I have found valuble is the ISO settings. I find myself changing that all the time and it can be done for each picture as your needs change.