The ESP Guitar Company

I need some help setting up my guitars. Seem to know the methods but fail (or too scared) to implement. Most of my guitars have high action and get out of tune easily. I have the tools, I even bought a book (Dan Erlewine's) to get started. Plenty of resources on the net, some are useful and some are not, but I thought I will approach the ESP board. So can we start with truss rod adjustment. What am I looking for here, straight neck? Placing a capo on the first fret and fretting the 17th fret, while looking for the spacing in the 7th-9th fret seems to be the method to adjust but I would like to get more on that or any better way to do it. I use 10-46 and tune to E standard or Eb. Nothing lower. Thanks :)