Ok...the best thing to do is to key in all the information you have into your new program. It's not necessary, but it will help you later.
The next links are for you to check, on the assumption you have a name you are looking for. The more info you have, even hunches or family rumors, the better.
First place to check is where we just where. The LDS. Millions of names are in their database. But be careful. All of these links should be used as guides only. A lot of the information in many of these databases is incorrect. The only way to determine the validity of the information is to check it out yourself. But, saying that, these links give you a place to start, and most of the information is correct.

All you need is a name for the following places. The more common a name, the more hits you will receive that aren't your person. Good luck.

Family Search  - the more info you can supply, the better the chance of a good hit are. But I suggest you first start by just typing in the name and looking through the list of hits for a possible match. If you tell this page you only want it to look in the US... you have to give it a state. A definite first stop for all your names.

My second recommended stop is the search engines. And do not just check one. Check multiple search engines for best results. Here is a clue. Always type the name you are looking for inside parenthesis. Anytime you are searching on the internet through a search engine you should use parenthesis. Here is why. If I type in John Smith into a search engine, it will return hits on every page that has the word John or Smith in it. Yahoo returns 951,428 pages to check. Typing "John Smith" tells the computer, I only want pages that show John and Smith together. Still Yahoo returns over 400,000 pages. Now, let's say I know my John Smith is from Kentucky. I limit the search engine even more. I type +"John Smith" +"Kentucky". I just dropped Yahoo down to about 3000 pages. The plus sign's before the parenthesis tell the search engine I only want sites with both John Smith and Kentucky on the same site. Helpful hint - many genealogists do not spellout the state name, but abbreviate. In this case I would not only check the spelling "Kentucky", but also "KY". The morale of this story - if your looking for John Smith, you have a LOT of work ahead of you  :-) (Also - It is wise to remember not only to spell your name how it actually is, but also how it sounds. Many census takers spelled names how they sounded, not how they actually should have been. And also, when searching, always check not only "John Smith" but also "Smith, John". Many genealogists have their records posted on the net with the surname first to make it easier to find in a long list.

Ok...here are some search engines to try.

Yahoo - Yahoo is the biggest, but not necessarily the best. Definetly worth a check.

I recommend for all the others, you check these two. They scan multiple search engines and come back with the best hits.

Mamma

SavvySearch (this is my personal favorite. Under customize on page 1, you can set Savvy Search to set up the search engines you want it to, including Yahoo. This information will be saved in a cookie for further searches. If you don't set it up, it will only check the top ten engines.)
And lastly - I personally only check Savvy Search and this one)

All The Web this site claims to hold the largest database of web pages, and I have had some success using it)

Some people recommend you only check the search engines as a last straw. I don't have a problem with this theory, unless I think I have a very unique name. Page three will give you where many start.

Page Three