Can I wipe my mac without the key user password?

I bought my mac second hand online, but the previous owner did not wipe it entirely and now I can not download and install anything without his password as it says he is still the user. I have emailed him repeatedly but I have had no reply and its been months. I need to install things soon as I am going to university. Do I have to go to the apple store and get it wiped? Or can I do it myself?

If you have a Snow Leopard retail disk you can easily reset your MacBook.
Put your install DVD into the optical drive and reboot. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option key until the Install Disk shows up). That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
If you want to just change the password once it has finished booting and you are at the Install screen launch Reset Password from the Utilities menu. Reset the password and then exit.
If you want to erase everything on your hard drive and start off with a reset to factory settings. Once it has finished booting and you are at the Install screen launch Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. You should see your hard drive in the left hand column along with your other drives. Click on the drive and select the Erase tab. Set the format value to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click the Erase button. After that has finished select the Partition tab. Type in a Name for your hard drive and select how many partitions you want from the Volume Scheme. The usual setting is one partition. Click on the Options button after you've selected a partition to make sure it's set for GUID. Then click the Apply button and after the Partitioning is done quit Disk Utility.You can now follow the instructions on the install screen.

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