Got to learn matlab I have this circuits and signals course where i have been asked to learn matlab all by myself and that its treated as a basic necessity
now i wanted some help as to where should i start from as i hardly have around less than a month before my practicals session start
should i go with video lectures/e books or which one should i prefer over the other?
 A: I'm replying late for your purposes, but maybe the answer will be helpful to someone else. 
Since you're taking a course, I assume you're connected to a school of some sort. I suggest you ask around the school to see whether there is any sort of software training center or a tutoring center. Both of these exist — though they're not well advertised — at my institution, and I discovered that there was a very good MATLAB instruction program there. Almost no one was signed up for it, amazingly, but the training they gave me was excellent.
It also turned out to be possible to use the campus's license to download a registered copy of MATLAB, so I can practice on my own machine at home. I would never have known this if I hadn't gone looking for it.
A: For the elementary syntax, you may look up introduction videos on youtube,
and start from simple task in this MIT introduction - problem set.
visit the Mathworks website god idea, it's got very good explanatory videos.
And dont foget 2 most important commands in matlab: "help" and "doc".
Matlab got very good documentation with examples.
EDIT: MIT Link is no longer available, you may want to copy and paste "MIT Introduction - problem set" into youtube. I believe the intended video series to view are below: 
MIT 6.00 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming, 2008.
A: I am learning also MatLab, am reading this guide may be usefull for you.
The guide has been very usefull for me.
Link : http://www.phy.ohiou.edu/computer/matlab/techdoc/pdfdocs/getstart.pdf
I wait all answers. :)
A: I recommend you to learn the software by doing some little project. Just learning it for the sake of it doesn't make sense since you will fastly loose track imho.
For example you could ask your tutor of the signal course to simulate some nice physical situation for him. You will learn MATLAB on the fly, get to know how to do some basic research and of course how its done on a personal level.
My best wishes
Robert 
