I have an Apple MacBook for over a year now. People say there's so much you can do on them and how great they are. I basically know how to open Safari, iPhoto, my AOL, and AIM... anyone know of any program built into the MacBook that I'm missing out on that I should check out??

There's a lot built in, and a lot of freeware & shareware out there for the Mac... what do you want to do with it? I've been a Mac user since circa 1985 so I can probably answer all your questions. So when you bought it, what did you see yourself doing with your MacBook?

Well I love to play around with photos and what not... is there a program that always me to do that?
Also, other PCs have Microsoft Word that usually comes with a computer... Mac doesn't... I know I can purchase it... but does it already have some sort of program already on here that I can use that's similar?

The iPhoto program comes with the Mac and lets you work with your photos. There's a program installed called Photo Booth that lets you take snapshots with the MacBook's built-in camera. The program Preview lets you do some light-weight photo editing. If you want to buy something inexpensive to supplement iPhoto and Preview, ImageWell (http://xtralean.com/IWOverview.html) is 20USD.

For word processing, the built-in text editor will handle most of your basic needs and if you want something more powerful, NeoOffice (http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php) does most of what Microsoft Office does, and it's a free download. However, it runs pretty slow because it's written in Java; a much faster alternative that's being developed is OpenOffice Aqua (http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua-Intel.html) but be aware it's still in Beta Test so it may crash on you once in a while. (both OpenOffice and NeoOffice are very large downloads).

There are other alternatives for working with your photos and word processing, but they cost more. For example, Apple's iWork 08 (http://www.apple.com/iwork/) is what I use for 90% of my word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. It's about 80USD. And the standard for photo editing is Photoshop Elements (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelmac/) which will run you about 90USD.

Thanks for the info... very helpful!! :)