Nikon d3000 settings for taking a picture with blue skies w/ white clouds?

Ok so i'm getting into photography as a hobby i have a nikon d3000 if that means anything and i was wondering what are the settings for taking pictures of someone or something and have a blue sky with white clouds? What are the manual setting for taking those type of pictures? Heres an example of what i mean. The photographers name is Michael Petrino here's the link of the picture

http://www.michaelpetrinophotography.com/index.php?showimage=60

I get good results with Program mode.

You don't really need manual for that. Set the camera to program mode, set the focal points to only one in dead center and let the camera do the rest.

Set camera to lowest ISO and Auto mode. Set EV to 0. Take a shot. Set EV down one tick and take a shot. If you don't like the result, continue, adjusting EV down until you get the result you want.

The link that you have provided shows the use of a wide angle lens and maybe a polarizer.

You can customize the camera further by increasing the saturation in the custom settings and by setting the sharpening to Auto. Keep the ISO as low as possible.

To get a deep blue sky with white fluffy clouds like that you use a circular polariser. This has the effect of reducing the light reaching the camera from the sky bringing it into the exposure range of the rest of the scene so it doesn't get washed out by over-exposure.

This photo was taken with a wide angle lens ( I would guess around 24mm on a full frame sensor, or 15mm on APS-C) and aside from the sky, the 2nd giveaway for use of a polariser is the total lack of reflection from the paint on the side of the car whereas the back shows gloss because the polarisation is in a different plane.

Exposure is critical - to be sure of getting a good result you should bracket your shots - take a range of 5 or so shots at 0.5 or 0.3 stop intervals to be sure to get it just right. Does the Nikon shot preview have a mode to highlight burnt out areas like my Canon? Using the histogram to assess and adjust exposure will ensure that no areas are burnt out and you get a good exposure.

The exposure balance between car and sky is helped here by the car being white. It would have been a much harder shot with a black car!