Good description Square Eye.
Replacing an outlet should be something most anyone can accomplish. Make SURE the power is off before you go poking around.
Browse through some of the wiring how to books. Many have good pictures of how the outlets are to be wired. Good to know before you start, just in case the first one you open up is wired backwards or you pull the wires off and don't get them wired back on immediately.
When you look at the plug face, notice the slots are different sized. The bigger one is the neutral (white wiere, silver screw), the smaller slot is hot (black or maybe red wire, brass screw) and the D shapped one is ground (green or bare wire, green screw).
One good suggestion I've seen (specifically for metal boxes) is to put about two wraps of black electrical tape around the outlet to cover the screws before pushing the outlet back into the box. Prevents shorts to the box if the outlet shifts any or isn't squared up inside the box.
Also, a good practice for safety reasons is to install the outlet with the ground pins up. If the plug is not seated fully, there will be a small gap where things could slip behind the plug and contact the prongs. If you had something like a metal framed picture on the wall above this plug that happened to fall down, it might slip in that space and short out the plug. With the ground prong at the top, this scenario would lead to the metal picture frame landing on the ground prong. Similarily if the outlets are horizontal, mount them so the wide (neutral) side is on top.