menu bar, left side bar, CSS?

Hi. I just have a simple question. I would like to design a web page that has a menu bar at top, a left side bar, and probably a news wire type bar on the right. Something similar to the way the main Dev Shed page is set up. I'm not asking for anyone to explain to me how to do this, I just don't know what I need to look into to do this. Is CSS what I'm looking for? Or is it something else? I've just started to learn PHP and that's the language I'm programming in, so is there some useful way to do this in PHP? Also, any tips about news wires? Thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction.

if you can handle php then i m sure you can handle basic html...buy a book or search the web

look up <table>, ssi, css, <div>, etc.

rock on!!