Just FYI I figured out part of the problem. When I bought it, it said it came with OSX Tiger, which it did, however there was an upgrade dvd that needed to be installed first (which I didn't know .. i assumed it was already done). When i started browsing around I noticed it was still 10.3 so I installed the upgrade DVD and am now at tiger.
Thanks for the info I will start browsing the websites you all provided. Sort of weird coming from linux, but pretty nice how everything just works
Andy