Help with focusing

[Tindomul]

Hello all,

I have a Nikon coolpix 4600. 4.0 megapixels, 3xzoom

ok. My fights with this camera (when we are both in a bad mood) is that I can't get it to focus on the object I want it to focus on. If Im taking a photo of a flower it will more often than not choose to focus on the background rather than the flower. I can sometimes fix this by putting my hand behind the flower, but there must be an easier way. What are your experiences with this? Thanks.

Also, the more I zoom, the harder it is to focus on the object I want to photograph.
This is why I've been eyeing Cannon Digital Rebel Xti, but maybe I just need to learn a trick or two?