LinuxQuestions.org - sets the environment variables, fortran

As usual, I'm so friggin lost. Please Help.

I have successfully installed the intel fortran compiler 9.0 for linux. "successful" bc the installation said it was "successful", so why am i having problems?

I suspect it has something to do with 'setting the environment varibles". I'm not sure what that means, but I think it has something to do with my "ifort" command not working.
for example, i type in ifort on the command line
and it says
"command not found"

now when i go to its specific directory, in this case
/opt/intel/fc/9.0/bin
where ifort is stored and so i type in
ifort and again "command not found" is given.
now when i type in
./ifort
it returns the following
Command line error: no files specified; for help type "ifort -help"
for which i try
ifort -help
again "command not found"

*BIG SIGH*
anyone with any ideas would greatly be appreciated
btw i've tried all the different shells
bash, sh, cash to no avail.

also i've tried
./ifortvars.sh
which returns a line without any error
but of course
when i try ifort outside of that specific directory it says command not found

that btw is related to intels "getting started doc"
which says
Configuring the Intel® Fortran Compiler
As part of a successful installation of the Intel Fortran Compiler 9.0 for Linux, the installer runs the installation script (install.sh). You need to also run the compiler environment script file (ifortvars.sh) that sets the environment variables. It is strongly recommended that you add this script file into your login script (.login for C shell or .profile for other shells). Once the variables are set in the login script, there is no need to run the environment script files for each session. The installation program also creates compiler configuration files named <install-dir>/bin/ifort.cfg that contains common settings for all compilations. You can edit this file to add additional default options.

thanks again peps