Module development and code questions

I've been trying out some modules, but none seem to give me what I want :

1. a text field to place in any region in my blocks configuration, where people can leave their email address if they want to stay updated about the website
2. an easy tool for the admin to send out emails to everyone who entered their email address.

It could be that I don't understand the current modules, but none of the mailing list, subscription, ... modules allowed me to do this...
Can anyone push me in the right direction? Thank you!

I want to set me drupal to the same layout as Onion.com How do i do this and what addons or plugines will i need?

Awaiting your reply

Would anyone be interested in upgrading the webserver_auth module to Drupal 5.x. I've had a crack at it but it's beyond me. I e-mailed the author but he's a little busy at the moment. So if anyone has the time and ability I'd much appreciate it.

Hi.

I am currently porting the content of the Planet Art Network / 13 Moon Calendar Peace Movement to Drupal.

Current Site:
http://www.tortuga.com/eng/index.php

Drupal Site:
http://www.tortuga.com/portal/

I'm trying to set up a shopping cart on a Drupal site, and I'm having a few difficulties. I'm quite familiar with e-commerce in general, having used osCommerce, ZenCart, Xcart, and others quite extensively, but I'm not wrapping my head around this one for some reason. I'm also a Drupal newbie, but not a CMS newbie.

Anyway...

1. I'd like to customize the /product page layout. I think I need to create a .tpl file in my theme for this, correct? How do I get the proper variables, and how do I tell it where to look for such a thing?

2. It seems to not automatically go to SSL during checkout, which seems odd to me. I'm not sure how to do this - I tried the securepages module, but as soon as I turned it on, the /admin site broke completely until I removed the module file.

3. Does anyone have any guidance on creating a payment module? I have the exact code that I use elsewhere to post a donation transaction from a form to our processor's website, but I'd like to integrate this into the Drupal structure properly. I tried using eway as a baseline, but when I do that all I get is a line in the checkout that says "Credit Card", but no place to enter one. Not that I'd want to anyway, without SSL, but...

Hi,

I've tried to change the selected index of the categories in the autoresponder block without success. I can alter which option is selected by default with '#default_value' but this causes auto responder to send emails without content.

Does anyone have an idea how I can choose which category is selected by default?

thanks in advance
RIm