Can't download anything

I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I cannot download anything. Currently I'm trying to download a word processing program. I've tried several ones - neo office, ragtime to name a couple.
I'm on a Lombard laptop. I just got the memory upgraded. It now has 384MB.
I tried downloading from Firefox and nothing happens. I tried off of Explorer and the download manager comes up and I get a "error".
HELP.

Try Safari and check that the General preferences are set to download to desktop.
Best.