Intel is generally well supported, although they are often not as timely in
releasing them as other vendors. I do not have 9.10 installed at the moment
on my Intel based netook. But I got full resolution when I had it installed
a few days ago. I just updated to 10.04 Lucid Lynx where it works fine with
full res and compositing.

There are 3 ways to go (in order of ease): have Ubuntu search for drivers
(System, Administration, Hardware Drivers), use Synaptic to search manually
or go to Intel's site for drivers. A fourth way would be to try for a kernel
upgrade. Since 9.04 the kernel has taken over graphics setting.

The 3rd option is probably the least desirable because you will have to
compile it for your kernel version. That is somewhat daunting for a new
user.

I would start with Hardware Drivers. If it says that there is no driver
available and this is likely the case since there are no proprietary Intel
drivers that I know of. Then move to Synaptic and search for your chipset.
You can search for xserver-xorg and look for video-intel. If it has a green
box then it is already installed and you should be able to change your
resolution to a higher setting unless there is something wrong that prevents
it from being activated. I use KDE so can't tell you how to do that in
GNOME.