I just downloaded 2.49v and I was doing an older tutorial on character building. It mentions a subsurf toggle button to smooth the mesh. Not set smooth this is something else. It is supposed to be in the panel with subdivide and other mesh options. The 2.49 v doesn’t seem to have this button. Has it been renamed? I can’t go any further with the tutorial until I work this out.
It is now a modifier so is in Editing (F9) / Modifiers panel
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Modifiers/Mesh/Subsurf
That tutorial must be extremely old. Try to use a tutorial which is applicable for the blender version you are using.
Just to preempt another possible question also coming from old tutorials, UV Face Select mode does not now exist, its functionality has been brought into the standard edit mode.