I would'nt suggest going cold turkey on Windows. A dual boot is most beneficial, especially if you want the best of both worlds. And I've had my share of problems with Ubuntu and laptops.

Webcams and multimedia arent really the shining stars in the Unix world. Those tasks (and yahoo conf) run better and easily on Windows. 

If you've used your entire hdd for installing Ubuntu (meaning bye bye MS) then you might be in a bit of spot. If you want to get stubborn about it and get your webcam working properly then firstly you need to be aware of what hardware you have (or rather what ubuntu perceives it to be). 

Use 'lspci' from the terminal to list your hardware. 'man lspci' for options to use with it. Once you have the culprit named, its upto your googling skills to find someone/somepage with your problems and (hopefully, a solution). I would recommend that while carrying out the instructions on the solutions, you backup important data, such as docs/pics/music, or have them on a separate partition, cuz sometimes the solutions lead to more problems (not always). 

These things can get frightfully intimidating, especially if you're a recent convert to the Unix philosophy (which translates to something like: Read the F***ing manual) and yes at most times you will have to RTFM to help solve your problem. 

Since I don't really have a solid solution to your predicament, I will point you down this particular road. 

Persevere, you will be glad you did :).

Welcome to the other side :) And feel free to join our infrequent but loveable google group and pester us with more questions :P