Getting start with Maven - maven-2

Question

I am very new to Maven.I have installed the maven on my local machine.
After installation for trial basis i was trying to execute mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.maven.archetypes -DgroupId=com.mycompany.app -DartifactId=my-app
for that i am getting below error message.
C:\work\maven2.2\bin>mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache
.maven.archetypes -DgroupId=com.mycompany.app -DartifactId=my-app
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] Searching repository for plugin with prefix: 'archetype'.
[INFO] org.apache.maven.plugins: checking for updates from central
[WARNING] repository metadata for: 'org.apache.maven.plugins' could not be retri
eved from repository: central due to an error: Error transferring file: repo1.ma
ven.org
[INFO] Repository 'central' will be blacklisted
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] The plugin 'org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin' does not exi
st or no valid version could be found
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] For more information, run Maven with the -e switch
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 2 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Tue Aug 30 11:45:49 IST 2011
[INFO] Final Memory: 1M/59M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can any one help me if i need to have a prerequisite setting for the same?
Thanks in advance. :)

Answer 1

It's comand is correct and on my computer run correctly. But you have Error transferring file. So on this branch you may read about this error.
EDIT:
Tutorials:
First of all read this article : maven in 5 minutes
For more information : Maven Getting Started Guide
The second article will give you all you need to understend maven.