Q: How to Fix Permissions (Custom Access and Locks Grayed Out)?

So I recently upped the security on my computer (an early 2008 10.5.8 MacBook) due to the fact one of my email addresses has remained compromised despite changing my password several times this month. I must have accidently changed some permissions because now I can't seem to change some settings. These are the main points of concern and relevant information:

1) When looking at the "Get Info" on my Hard Drive and my User Account, the Permissions sections say:

- Hard Drive

"You have custom access"

system - Write only (Drop Box)

admin - Read & write

everyone - No access

- User Account (the admin)

"You have custom access"

Daisy (Me) - Read & Write

staff - read only

everyone - read only

- Additionally, the little Lock icon at the bottom right is grayed out, and when I click it, it won't unlock or prompt me for my password

2) The System Preferences Lock icon in the bottom left icon won't prompt me for my password/unlock when I click it.

3) When I tried to change something on my external hard drive with my Time Machine backups, it said "This user does not have permission to perform this task." (It's been almost two months since I last did Time Machine, so that isn't an option).

4) This user account (Daisy) is the admin and my only user account on this computer.

5) I have no idea where my Installation DVD is and I am away at school and wouldn't have immediate access to it anyways (it's probably somewhere back home)

6) I do have a password setup, but the computer still isn't prompting me for it when trying to unlock preferences.

I found this on the apple support site, but it requires the installation DVD... I need to fix the problem ASAP because I need to change some setting on the System Preferences panel. I'd like a solution without the disc.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1334

I also found some forum that suggests typing certain commands into Terminal. However, when I tried the second one, it warned about possibly deleting stuff and instructed me to type in "man sudo" for more information but when I typed that, nothing happened and I didn't want to do anything without knowing more about it.

sudo chflags 0 /volumes/*

sudo chmod a+rx /volumes/*

I am currently trying to verify permissions using Disk Utility but it is taking forever to verify (been over an hour now) and I am getting impatient.

Please help me fix the problem!! Also... My printer isn't working, I keep getting message "client error not possible") and my computer won't uninstall or re-install the driver for my printer (when I click "install" or "uninstall" nothing happens) and I'm wondering if this could be related at all to whats going on with the permissions?