Will I have to take special precautions in shooting the sun? Can I damage my camera? Thanks!

Lots of discussion on this already. Try this for starters...
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11913&highlight=shoot+sun

The manual probably tells you not to shoot into the sun. This is probably because you can burn out your pixels that way. Anyways, you should use a neutral density filter to protect your camera and because cameras don't do well when it's really really bright.

You can also get a graduated ND filter. It darkens the top more than the bottom. This can reduce the contrast between sky + ground.