I have been downloading programs and compiling them using the commands "./configure" then "make install". I can get apps install but my question is how do you uninstall them? Or should I be working with packages instead of compiling programs? Be easy on the linux newbie.

You are going to kick yourself....."make uninstall" will usually work! You will have to do this in the same directory as you did the original "make install" from. If you have already deleted the source directories then download them again, uncompress and run "./configure && make uninstall". Deleting by hand is also an option. You have no registry file to speak of but it can be quite tedious. I prefer using checkinstall when compiling from source. Follow the usual installation instructions for the package up until "make install" and run checkinstall instead. This will do a test of make install and create a package based on your system to install as you would any other rpm, tgz or deb. This makes managing software a little easlier. Checkinstall homepage: http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/