[X4U] Moron needs help - beware!

[Chris]

Greetings!

I read this digest every day and am hoping some of you can help me out with what is very routine
to many of you, but a daunting, confusing task to me - a self confessed moron, so at the risk of
taxing your patience:

I have a dual 450 purchased new running 10.2.8. I finally bought a copy of 10.3 and have a lot of
questions as to the installation. As this was my first computer, it has suffered many indignities
at my hands over the years, and I'd like nothing more than to start out with a clean slate and
erase the drive and do a fresh clean installation - everything I've read seems to suggest this as
the best way to go to help clear up "buggy behavior" and to optimize the OS. Is ther any reason
NOT to do this? For all intents and purposes, I have NO backed up data. AND {almost} NO IDEA OF
WHAT I"M DOING! I've been reading document :
 
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106941#2c

 but am still not sure how to proceed; I'm scared to death of not properly backing everything up -
I have a little under 10 GB used on a 40 GB HD and will be using a CD burner for the backup.
Here's where the questions start - exactly what do I need to back up to insure I'll be saving
everything I want, without bringing any potential "old" problems onto the new os? Is backing up
the home folder enough? I have a couple users, but am only concerned about saving my adminsrator
user. I have a lot of 3rd party apps too - How are they reinstalled - does each one have to be
reinstalled again from disc or download? What about internet settings - will they be preserved?
{verizon dsl} Of concern is I have thousands of bookmarks - safari and IE, and want to make sure
they are preserved and be able to reinstall them. 

I'd like to keep OS 9 - how do I handle that in regards to the clean installation of OS X - how do
I  erase the drive, and do I need to reinstall OS 9  FIRST {my original  OS} and THEN install
panther?  and if so - what is the sequence to do that, AND should I put OS 9 on a seperate
partition? {how big?} Does anything else have to be done ? {for example, enable the root user?}
Will firmware have to be updated again? Can sofware update be counted on to reveal everything I
need to update? 
Can anyone suggest a FREE utility that will allow me to "just drag all my data to the burner" and
then prompt for another cd when the first is full so I don't have to break it up into 700 mb
chunks?

ANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS/TIPS REGARDING THIS WHOLE ISSUE ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Many Many Thanks,

ct

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