Some minor questions about OS X

Is there some kind of comand that'll take you back to the desktop and minimize all the windows you have open? Like the little dohickey that windows has in the quicklaunch section?

Also, are there any programs (or anything resident in OS X to turn on) that'll show you all of the windows you currently have open (like the program bar in windows)?

Maybe a bit to "windowsish" for some of you, but sometimes I feel like I don't have enough info available to me about what I have running.

Hit F9 or F10.

This is a feature called Expose... it's designed to make multitasking easier.

F9 - Shows you all open windows.
F10 - Shows you all open windows within the context of the application
F11 - Puts you back at your desktop, basically like the Windows button-D command.

Actually looks like F11 is one of things I was looking for, as for the others, I was thinking of more like an "always on top" display that showed all of the windows that were open.

You mean like alt-tab on windows? Use command-tab (the little apple button is command.)