You're going to get several answers, so here's mine. Research. Don't go into any OPS without learning the basics of the boss fights. That being said, joining a guild with "newcomer" gearing run is another option for gear. The last and more solo friendly options is Group Finder/Black Hole comms. There are plenty of guilds out there with friendly people willing to teach new players the ropes of the content. As with Voice Chat, not a necessity for the SM content if you know the fights, but it does help. Though, if you plan to run the HM OPS, then I would say Voice Chat is a must. Any guild worth a darn will have a voice chat server and I'm will to bet, if you ask, they will also teach you how to use the software. Lastly, if you are new to an OPS or FP, please say so as soon as it is forming or starting up. You'll find some players that will boot you quickly, but I'm willing to bet there are far more people who will take the time to teach you also.

The EA store/Origin sells digital time card. You can get them through there. It's how I pay for my TOR game time.

It all really depends on your group build. I, as the healer, actually tell the dps to run their bubbles back into previous bubbles to avoid littering the battlefield with AoE. I will heal them. I also tell them to NOT dps adds unless I ask them to. I usually drag adds to tank and he/she just AoE taunts them off of me then, I have dps and myself aoe them while they are in boss. As many people have said before. LR-5 is more of a mechanics check than anything else. I personally hate the "kite" method, but just find the way that works for you as there are several ways to clear LR-5. And as everyone has said, interrupting incinerate, keeping aggro and bubble placement are the most important thing in this fight. The only time LR-5 gives me trouble is when the DPS has tunnel vision and doesn't move away bubble away from fight zone.

I didn't see your specs, but if you run an ATi vid card. Try rolling back the driver version to 11.10. I had a huge FPS issue with 11.11 and 11.12 where I could only get 10-20 FPS with my laptop set on low settings and everything off. But when I run SWTOR with 11.10, my laptop runs the game on high (bloom off) at 60-80 FPS. Another guy on the forum had this same problem and I gave him the same suggestion. When he rolled back his ATi driver, his FPS shot up to the 60-70 range.