ok, so one of the first thing that most people (including me) want to do when they get ubuntu, is make it more user friendly and usable. now, there are a few ways to do this. what I'm going to show you how to:

now, that is the order i'm going to teach you in. So, let's get started...

installing themes

now, installing themes is as easy as a few clicks. 2 good sites to look at are http://gnome-look.org and http://art.gnome.org.

now, all you have to do to download the theme you want, is navigate to the theme you want, click the download button, and save it to your desktop. Now to install it, go to system > preferences > appearance. a box like this should come up:

now, in the first box (the one you can see on the screen), all you need to do, is drag and drop the theme you downloaded into the box, and click apply this theme, or whatever your message is. then, click the save button, and name it whatever you like, and voila, you've just installed your first theme.

adding a wallpaper

Now this is really easy. i dont even need pictures to explain this. All you have to do is get your picture (whether it's off one of the sites i gave you, or google etc), right click the picture, and click "set as desktop wallpaper/background". in the drop down menu in that little box, select "stretch" and then click OK, close the box, and enjoy your new wallpaper.

installing apps

this is probably one of the hardest things to grasp at first about ubuntu. It isn't like windows, where you go to a site, click download and it installs it for you with an easy install wizard. in fact, it's much easier than that. there are 2 places where all the apps and packages you will ever need are kept. You can also install through the terminal using apt-get, but for a beginner, that can seem a bit daunting (I know it did for me).

If you want to install an application, simply go to "applications", then "add/remove". this screen will come up:

all you have to do from there is search for your app, tick the box next to it, and click apply.

if you want to install packages instead of an app, go to "system", then "administration". this screen will come up:

do the same routine here. search for the package, tick the box (and click mark for installation), then click apply, and let it install.

I hope this tutorial has helped, and if you need any more advice, please either post your problem on here, or on http://ubuntuforums.org