How would I code this?

Hey, well I'm only beginner at coding but I think I've got the basics, but I have a few question that I would like answered. Firstly, THIS is the template I want to code. As you can see it is a link site so I need it to expand. What I want to know is, which would be the best way to go about doing this?

The way I was thinking, would be to have the CONTENT AREA expanding but when I try it stays the same size and the text goes out the bottom.

Also, what would be the best way to make rollovers, I've seen several way, but which one is the best?

Can anyone help?

its best to crop the bottom, and for the content area, make it expand with a solid BG color. with height set to auto

I'd go for this sort of setup:

<div id="header">
<p>Just a place holder where the header would go</p>
</div>
<div id="banner">
<p>Blah, another place holder</p>
</div>
<div id="content'>
Links here
</div>

Then just style it with CSS to make the borders look good. That way it'll expand and you won't have to use images.

#content {
background: #bgcolor;
border-right: 10px solid #bordercolor;
border-left: 10px solid #bordercolor;
border-bottom: 10px solid #bordercolor;
padding: 8px;
}

Here is a site that is great for trying to learn the whole css tabless layout thing http://www.code-sucks.com/css%20layouts/