Using SSH? (no Doctorate in crypto)

I was really psyched about using Unix and currently am using Debian, but after just recently reading that all that ftping I've been doing is basically as insecure as anything I could do with Linux, so I found out about ssh and it being the standard for any sort of secure transactions.

So I read like 10 tutorials, and I still know absolutely nothing. This shit makes zero sense. Is there some sort of newbie tutorial respository, because I'm spending like 6 hours failing at doing the simplest shit.

WOW MAKE IT EASIER FOR ME BECAUSE U KNOW ALL I NEEDED TO KNOW WAS HOW TO APT-FUCKING-GET IT I ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO RUN AN ENCRYPTION SERVICE USED BY THE MILITARY AND TAUGHT BY 150K A YEAR TECHNOLOGY COLLEGES RIGHT OFF THE BAT BECAUSE IM INSTINCTIVE LIKE THAT.

I still haven't got the server working because of a (surprise surprise) java error!

C:\SSHTools-SSHDaemon-Win32-0.0.9\bin>sshd-start.bat
Looking for JNI dependency MSVCP60.DLL
Searching PATH for MSVCP60.DLL
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: main

Are there any SSHD servers that actually work? I'm starting to get very very concerned over the fact that there's something like 100 million people out there and not one of them can write a fucking GUI for SSHD. Fuck SSHD, people can sniff my mouse transitions and witty insults to CSS players that AWPed me in the cs_office hostage room, this shit isn't worth it.