Photoshop CS problem

Hello all, I've been using PSP for a while and decided to get PS to compare the two. But I'm having some problems using CS.
[x] Cant you copy and paste-as-new-image as you could in PSP?
[x] The most annoying bug is something's wrong with my text tool. At first it worked just fine but then it seems like I cant put any text on my graphic.




the layer's name seems fine but there's nothing on the graphic but a line. What's wrong? Should I re-install the program?

[x] Last, if anyone could point me to good PS tutorials that would be much appreciated since I'm really new to this thing.

Thanks a lot