I'm learning how to design web pages, and I like the pure html+css standard. However there are two tricks I'd like to be able to do, but I couldn't find how with a bit of experiment. I gues they should be quite standard.

1) I'd like to have a fixed layout for everything but themain text. So I'm thinking something like that. The header should be fixed when the page scrolls, as well as a left column with the navigation buttons. The text itself should be in a central column, and when you scroll it, it should go behind the header.

2) I'd like to have some links over images. If a user doesn't want images, then he should be able to use textual links. In other words I want a link where images are over, and not behind, the text.

Is there a way to do this?