Component Help

I recently came here and followed the tutorials to make my first component layout, however by September I wanted to make something a bit more spiffy... I wanted to know a few things...

1.)How could I change the "BaldMan" Lj default pic to something of my own?
2.) How might I be able to get the sidebar to be aligned with the header so that it is next to the header instead of underneath?
3.) How might I be able to add an image seprator?

♥
enamours_boy

I have looked through and can't find the answer to this question so im hoping someone will be able to help me.

I wanted my journal to have a faded opacity, and if you view it in internet explorer you will see that it is.
But, of course it dosn't work in firefox as expected.
Does anyone know of a method so it is transparent in firefox?
I don't mind if it isn't in any other browser, but I am a firefox user, so this is frustrating.

thanks in advance for any help!

how do i changed the height of my entry header where the date is located? for some reason it wont become smaller like i want it to. :[

and how do i add a border to my icons preferably like this?

how the icons posted all have that border with the white and the light grey? i want that for my icons in my entries. i should note that im using the icon in the entry itself override on my layout.

thanks :D