iBook is slow

I have had my iBook for less than a year. For the last month, I notice that it takes a full three minutes for the laptop to boot up. It used to be lightening fast and it is much slower than my husband's Windows laptop or slower than I remember my old laptop working. 😟 Programs run slowly. Such as Safari. When I am using Word, sometimes I type many letters before they appear on the screen. I have a I don't have a lot of "stuff" on it. I use it primarily for Word Processing and Email. I have photos, but I even deleted Garage Band to save space. On Windows, I knew how to check for things that might have been slowing the machine, but here I have no clue. I live near an Apple Store and plan to take it there. So far, I haven't had any help from them on this. They are busy. Any ideas and help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4) New to Apple: Happy but Clueless