Hello. Iam using maya and want to draw something that look like the 3d shapes example from nehe: http://nehe.gamedev.net/lesson.asp?index=01 But how is matrial and lights turned off and how is a vertex colored? please help!

-Materials are off by default (Smooth shade mode is the '5' key, smooth shaded and hardware texturing is '6' key)
-Default lighting is... default. You can use scene lighting by pressing the '7' key... if you don't have any lights, your objects will be black.
-To color vertices, go to Edit Polygons->Colors->Paint Vertex Color Tool.

Also, it sounds like you just opened Maya for the first time. Do some tutorials to get aquainted with it before you ask people to hold your hand (also, a quick search in the Help file would have answered your last question).