I am a complete newbie. I just started and don't know how to do anything. How do I use my spells? How do I hotkey them? Where do I go to find quests? If you can help my newb butt with some general info that would be appreciated.
Hi Newbsauce (cool name) and welcome :)
Inquisitive one, aren't you?
First of all, check out UO Stratics (http://uo.stratics.com/) - a crap ton of information. Most of it is relevant but as this is a player ran shard some things will not be applicable.
As for spells, double click spell book to open it, drag an icon from the spell pages (not the spell list) onto your screen - anywhere you like, UO was pre-action bar play style lol, double click it to cast.
To hotkey them open options and click the bottom left tab to set up a macro -it's self explanatory from there.
As you're new, head to the training elementals in New Insula (just outside of where you start). You can attack them but they wont harm you. Practise all you want, you can't really go wrong. When you're familiar with the mechanics the new player dungeon is in the same room - go try killing some nasties :)