I am working on a WordPress theme and am having a few issues witht he
fight it is giving me as it constantly seem like it does not want to
work or display how I want it to. WordPress is a blogging software that
is very much like a full CMS for those who do not know that.

Are there any gurus out here that I can type to find out more about how
to deal with my specific issues in this software?

You know I DON't know! lol. I had a terrible time with b2evolution!

Before I jump back into that I think I will go over to the manual and
read up some on WorkPress though. I don't get some of the terminology
and being able to blog is not a top issue for me right now but I do want
to know about WordPress too as I did delete the b2 and set up the
wordpress also.

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this subject.

Verb

Verb,
WordPress is pretty easy in gneral the only thing that really bothers me
about it is the lack of abuility an admin of the blog has to customize
it. It seems to be a CMS at the same time it is a blogging software. It
limits the ways you can access the database and maniplate its contents
while also making it so you have to use certain outside url links which
is not what I am loking to do. I would much rather have a solution that
allows me to have complete control over my environment then one that
forces me into playing by their customized rules.

I am going to try out the b2evolution I think and see if that is any
better. For a beginning blogger wordpress is great as long as the
beginning blogger is not a programmer. Programmers want to be in control
of their environment not give up that control to a third party software.

hey i know quite abit about wordpress. Do you have a copy of the
css.php file that I Could take a look at?

Here is the styles.css file for it. What I would like to do at first is
have the pages show up the same in both IE 6-7 and Firefox at
resolutions of 1024x768 as well as 1280x1024 at a minimum, currently the
footer seems to be floating to the top in FF. I would also like this to
be done as a liquid design without the use of tables for postitioning as
CSS was designed to do that in the first place.

I would also like the calendar feature centered and to say it is a
calendar in the bar above it. I would also like the search features on
the other side of the page to say in their perspective title bars if
they are local site search or web searchs.

I would also like to be able to remove links to external websites that I
did not create or am not being paid to advertise by. such as the links
to wordpress itself and the author of the template I am using as well.

I need it to all pass XHTML strict validation as well as the CSS
validation as published by the W3C.

The live Blog can be viewed at lakeareawebs(dot)com/blog/

Anyhow here is the code you requested.

/*
Theme Name: RockinBizRed3Col
Author URI: http://www.nathanrice.org/
Version: 1.2
Author: Nathan Rice
Description: RockinBizRed3 is a clean and sleek theme designed
specifically for business blogs and websites. It comes with a
replaceable header image, photoshop file included.
The CSS, XHTML and design is released under GPL:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php
*/

body {
background: #ffffff url(images/red-stripe.gif) top center repeat-x;
color: #666666;
font-size: 11px;
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
body * {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
a, a:visited{
color: #0066cc;
text-decoration: none;
}

a:hover{
text-decoration: underline;
color: red;
}
#container {
width: 950px;
text-align: left;
margin: 0 auto;
}

#header {
height:118px;
padding:83px 0px 0px 25px;
background: url(images/headernew.jpg) top center no-repeat;

/*height: 118px;
padding: 83px 0px 0px 25px;
background: url(images/header.jpg) bottom center no-repeat;
*/

}
#header h2 {
color: #cccccc;
font-size: 20px;
font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
margin: 0px;
}

#header h2 a {
color: #ffffff;
text-decoration: none;
}

#header h2 a:hover {
color: #000000;
text-decoration: none;
}

#header h3 {
color: #cccccc;
font-size: 10px;
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Sans-Serif;
font-weight: bold;
text-transform: uppercase;
margin: 0px;
}

#menu {
background: transparent;
font-size: 12px;
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
padding: 18px 25px 18px 25px;
text-align: center;
}
#menu h2 {
color: #cccccc;
font-size: 14px;
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0px;
padding: 10px 25px 12px 25px;
}

#menu li {
display: inline;
list-style-type: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
#menu ul {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

#menu ul li a {
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
font-size: 11px;
color: #ffffff;
padding: 10px 25px 12px 25px;
margin: 0px;
text-decoration: none;
}

#menu ul li a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
#content {
width:518px;
float: left;
margin: 14px 15px 20px 35px;
display: block;
}

#content p{
margin: 0px;
line-height: 18px;
padding: 0px 0px 10px 0px;
font-size: 12px;
}

#content p img{
border: none;
padding: 0px 5px 15px 0px;
}
#content h1 {
color: #6B030B;
font-size: 22px;
font-family: Helvetica Bold, Arial Bold, Verdana, Sans-Serif;;
font-weight: normal;
padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
line-height: 150%;
margin: 0px;
}

#content h1 a {
color: #6B030B;
text-decoration: underline;
}

#content h1 a:hover {
color: #000000;
text-decoration: none;
}

#content h2 {
color: #6B030B;
font-size: 20px;
font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0px;
line-height: 150%;
border-bottom: 1px solid #999999;
}
#content h2 a {
color: #6B030B;
text-decoration: none;
}

#content h2 a:hover {
color: #000000;
text-decoration: none;
}
#content ol {
list-style-type: decimal;
line-height: 18px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px 0px 10px 30px;
}
#content ul {
list-style: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px 0px 10px 0px;
}

#content li {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

#content ul li {
list-style: square inside;
margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;
padding: 5px 0px 0px 0px;
}

#content ul li a {
color: #cccccc;
text-decoration: none;
}

#content ul li a:hover {
color: #000000;
text-decoration: underline;
}
blockquote{
margin: 0px 0px 0px 25px;
padding: 0px 25px 0px 10px;
font-style: italic;
color: #666666;
border-left: 1px solid #cccccc;
}

#content blockquote p{
margin: 0px 0px 20px 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

.postspace {
background: #FFFFFF;
width: 440px;
height: 32px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
.postspace2 {
background: #FFFFFF;
width: 440px;
height: 0px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
.comments {
padding: 8px;
}
.comments h3 {
font-family: Arial, Sans-Serif;
margin-bottom: 10px;
font-size: 15px;
}
.comments ol, .comments ol li {
list-style-type: none;
padding: 0px;
margin: 0px;
}
.comments ol li {
margin: 5px 0px 5px 0px;
padding: 10px;
background: #F5F5F5;
overflow: hidden;
}
.comments ol .alt {
background: #FFFFFF;
}
#l_sidebar {
width: 180px;
display: block;
background: #FFFFFF;
float: left;
margin: 5px 0px 20px 0px;
}

#l_sidebar h2 {
color: #FFFFFF;
background: #FFFFFF url("images/red-stripe.gif") repeat-x;
font-size: 12px;
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
font-weight: bold;
list-style: none;
padding: 10px 0px 10px 12px;
margin: 15px 0px 0px 0px;
width: 100%;
}

#l_sidebar ul {
list-style: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
border-bottom: 0px solid #E2E2E2;
}

#l_sidebar li {
list-style: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

#l_sidebar ul li {
list-style: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
border-top: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
border-bottom: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
}

#l_sidebar li a:link, #l_sidebar li a:visited {
margin: 0px;
padding: 4px 0px 4px 5px;
display: block;
background: transparent;
color: #666666;
text-decoration: none;
}

#l_sidebar ul li a:hover {
background-color: #FFFFFF;
text-decoration: underline;
}
/*##################################*/
#r_sidebar {
width: 180px;
display: block;
background: #FFFFFF;
/*float: left; */
position:absolute;
top:250px;
left:800px;

margin-top: 5px;
margin-bottom: 20px;
margin-left:20px;
padding: 0px;
border: 0px solid #000000;
}

#r_sidebar h2 {
color: #FFFFFF;
background: #FFFFFF url("images/red-stripe.gif") repeat-x;
font-size: 12px;
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
font-weight: bold;
list-style: none;
margin: 15px 0px 0px 0px;
padding: 10px 0px 10px 12px;
width: 100%;
}

#r_sidebar ul {
list-style: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
border-bottom: 0px solid #E2E2E2;
}

#r_sidebar li {
list-style: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

#r_sidebar ul li {
list-style: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
border-top: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
border-bottom: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
}

#r_sidebar li a:link, #r_sidebar li a:visited {
margin: 0px;
padding: 4px 0px 4px 5px;
display: block;
background: transparent;
color: #666666;
text-decoration: none;
}

#r_sidebar ul li a:hover {
background-color: #FFFFFF;
text-decoration: underline;
}
#l_sidebar ul li ul li, #l_sidebar ul li ul li {
padding-left: 8px
}

#footer {
clear: all;
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
border-top: 1px solid #666666;

}

Do you know if your theme supports widgets?

It says it does support widgets and the calendar itself is a widget as
well.

I would really like to be in control of the CSS, SQL and HTML or XHTML
without the addition of the CMS interface wordpress seems to push on me.
I relize that may not be possible without me actually writing my own
blogging software.

WordPress itself has made me not like blogging over the past month as
while it is a simple way for a person to put up a blog at the same time
it seems very constaining.

Open source to me means I can modify anything I want in any way I choose
to create or customize the application to suit my needs and desires. It
means it is freely distributed for people to do that and imporve
functioanlity of the product if they choose to.

I want to do just that I do not want to have a bunch of outgoing links
from my site to other sites. In fact I see that as a violation of the
rules of open source to require links.

I am very familiar with CSS, XHTML, HTML, JavaScript, MySQL and several
other technologies. Dealing with the CMS that WordPress seems to be has
me seriously looking at B2Evolution at this point. It seems to me to
have alot less fluff between me and the actual source code.

Well you do have the right to remove the outgoing links, and you can
adjust the css and other code in the admin interface. to do that first
you need to make the theme writable on the server. best way to do that
is using your ftp client. go to the themes folder and right click on
the files for the particular theme and chmod them to 666. that way you
can rewrite the files without having to reupload.

I should be able to just download the css files and edit them in my
dreamweaver or other text editor and then upload them and get the same
results as well. I will have to work on it more it seems as when I do
that I run into other problems of the display not showing up correctly
or not functioning as it should.

I have been ignoring it for about a month now and I need to get back to
work on it or just remove it entirely. I really want to be able to have
the blog look and feel like like my website and not have to have my
website look and feel like the blog.

I do not really like the idea of having to look like a templated
website. The idea of a blog is to add content to my website not to add
my website to a blog.

I don't know how to explain it any other way to you how I feel. All I
can say is that I do not think that WordPress is going to be my final
resting spot in my blog software search. I may end up writing my own
blogging software at this point.

there is an option to set the main page as a static page. Check the
documentation for instructions on how to use it.