Version Control for developers new to source control

Question

I've been writing code for a few years now and our backup strategy has been to zip the entire code directory up every few days and put it somewhere else on your hard drive, or occasionally upload it to some online file hosting service.

Unfortunately the file hosting service got canceled without telling me and we lost years of backups. It's come down to the point where I finally have to learn to use version control. The only problems are

1. My boss really doesn't like SVN, he tried it and it had a high learning curve (at least his client).
2. We need a reliable place to host it (we can pay a reasonable amount).

Can someone suggest what may be the best version control system and client for a newbie which won't be too annoying.

Second what is a good remote version control service?

Answer 1

Good user experience and good remote VCS:

• GitHub (git): for learning that DVCS, see Git Immersion (and GitHub Help pages).
• BitBucket (mercurial): for learning that DVCS, see HgInit.