Rp Tutorials

I'm totally new to journals and making them pretty etc and wonder if someone can offer me some help.

I want to put links to information on my journal (information about me, the sort of games I'm looking for etc), but I'd like clickable pictures to link to the journal entry. Can anyone tell me how I can do this?

How do I edit the user pic on my friends' page? I figured out how to fix the problem of the text squishing right against it but I can't change the background-colour nor margins of the user pic 'frame'.

And is there any way to get rid of it?

I know there is an existing code to convert LJ "Flexible Squares" layouts, but are there any existing ones for "Smooth Sailing"? Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I thought I've seen a fellow IJer with a Smooth Sailing layout. Does anyone know?