well, i figured out the stuff i was wondering about except....

is there an easy way to center every thing so it is not set to the left side?

thanks

yup, make a div, and give it a margin of "0 auto"; and it should center itself. Then place everything in that.

that is not seeming to work.

also i have come across another problem. on http://smoothmatic.com the grey box isnt how it is supposed to be in firefox, but is right in IE. and http://smoothmatic.com/news.php has the same problem.

I think layes are the best option,

Put in a layer and set both margins to auto.
http://bluerobot.com/web/css/center1.html

Regarding your other problem with the sizing of the boxes. If you are useing layers, then this is how to fix the problem:

http://glish.com/css/hacks.asp

i am not experienced in css at all, these are my first two pages using css. so could you be more specific?
thanks