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 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 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 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 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 which will run you about 90USD.

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