Something that should be run early on, but I'm just now getting around to: $ redhat-config-services (root password required)
Lets you turn on and off daemons. I'm turning off various things I don't need, like sshd, as I don't need this machine to be an ssh server, at least not at the moment.
If a service is running, you can stop it with an icon at the top of the window. You can also prevent it from starting on the next reboot by unclicking the box next to the name of the service.