Well, you'll be pleased to know its very easy.

My first stab at it was simply following a youtube tutorial on how to make it based on what you can buy at the supermarket (bread yeast, mineral water, honey and some raisins). You mix it all up and leave it to ferment in the water bottle. This turned out rather well.

I then bought a basic 'kit' off amazon, and a couple of books. The recommended reading is 'The Compleat Meadmaker' by Ken Schramm and 'The Complete Guide to Making Mead' by Steve Piatz. Start off with simple meads. Then experiment. :)

Making friends with the local beekeeping association and LARP group is also recommended. :)

There is tons of info on the Internet as you would expect.

Whats the difference between Mead and the more typical Ale home brewing people do?

This is the bible: http://howtobrew.com/ Its the 1st edition of the most popular book to learn brewing by far. Mead is just a slight offshoot from beer, you just replace some grain with honey. This will teach you the fundamentals, then you can just google "mead recipe" and apply the same techniques.