I want to learn how to play the violin, does anyone have some helpful tips on where to start?

in the garage..as far away from the house as possible.

No disrespect intended.

from my experience I have been playing the piano for 15 years I have only been playing the violin well it was kind of off and on for about three years with a violin teacher.I have started again since January I started to take violin lessons.The violin is hard but since I have a background in piano everything that I learn for violin is not that difficult i am not starting from scratch I have applied everything I have learned in my 15 years of piano to violin it really does help to have a background in a different instrument like piano it kind of is not so intimidating I always feel in learning something new in violin that can be really hard but not intimidating. I guess it is always best to start off on instrument that isn't so intimidating and develop fundamentals and skill in order to play the violin it would benefit so much.

get a private teacher!! otherwise, there's some good videos on youtube from the user "professorV". I would imagine it would be realy hard to learn it anyway else because even though violin has a lot of different good techniques, it's hard to get even close to correct technique without actually having someone showing you how to do it.

The first thing you should do is find a good private teacher. See:

How to locate teachers and violin shops:

http://beststudentviolins.com/PedagogyTech.html#1