Oscommerce shopping cart customization

My website software is the 'CRE Loaded6 v6.1a' of oscommerce. I am using the 'Pixame' template that comes with this software. I would like to make a number of customisations / small modifications to the standard 'out of the box' behaviour of this software. I have made some changes already, but have now reached the limits of my low level of understanding of PHP coding. Some of the modifications I need are very small, others are a little more substantial. In this Project Description, I have broken down what I would like to have done into 6sub-projects. We are likely to be needing further customisations after these tasks have been completed, so we are looking to find somebody we can work with for the longer term as well as just for these immediate tasks. SUB-PROJECT 1 Change the link on the detailed Product Description page that displays a larger-sized image of the product so that it pulls in the image from a different domain on an external server. Currently, the built-in link assumes that the larger-size image will be stored on the same server as oscommerce itself. However, this is not feasible for me, so I want the link to refer to an image on say [login to view URL] where the '123' part of the image filename is the oscommerce product ID. I believe this will require a slight change to the /templates/content/[login to view URL] file, in the Javascript section, area near TEXT_CLICK_TO_ENLARGE. SUB-PROJECT 2 Add a short product description (of up to 255 characters) to product lists, and left-align all images displayed in these lists. Currently, when products in my store are displayed in a list, for example on the standard 'Let's See What We have Here" page, there is a column, and each row in the column is made up of a product image, then the product title, then the price, then a 'Buy Now!' button. This type of display typically comes up if you click one of the Catageories in the Categories box. My current setup will show all the products in the category in a list as described. This display looks bare. I would like to add a brief product description underneath the product title / product price (max. of 255 characters) as a lead-in to the more detailed product description that can be obtained by the customer clicking on either the product image or the product title in this list. At the same time, I would like all the images in these lists, which are of different widths, to left-align. I believe that there is a 'Short Products Descriptions' contribution that could be used for this, which adds an extra field to the database. This sub-project therefore might just be a case of installing that contribution and then integrating it with the rest of my software. SUB-PROJECT 3 Prevent product weights from displaying anywhere to the Customer. I would like any display of individual product weights or the total weight of an order to to be completely suppressed. The weight of the product as held in the database should only be used by the system as a 'behind the scenes' figure for shipping calculations, and should be hidden from the customer at all times. SUB-PROJECT 4 Changes to the actual Checkout process experienced by the Customer. Through my setup of the software via the Admin menus, I have only allowed 1 address per customer, i.e. I have set ADDRESS_BOOK_ENTRIES = 1. This is because I am only delivering goods to the address of the Registered cardholder where the customer is paying by credit card, or to their Confirmed address if paying by PayPal. In the Checkout process where the Customer is asked to enter their address, I need a message adding at the point to this effect, i.e. that the address they are entering must be the Registered Cardholder's address if paying by credit card, or their PayPal Confirmed Address if paying by PayPal. This could come after the 'NOTE: If you already have an account with us, please login at the login page'. After the Customer has entered their name and address details, and clicked 'Continue', they are on the 'Delivery Confirmation. page. On this page, in the 'Shipping Address' box, there is a message that reads "Please choose from your address book where you would like the items to be delivered to" with a button link labelled 'Change Address'. However, because I have set ADDRESS_BOOK_ENTRIES = 1 this link will not enable the customer to change anything. I would therefore like this message and link to be removed. The message could be replaced by 'Please check your shipping address carefully - change if incorrect. This address must be your intended Payment Method billing address' with a button below labelled 'Change Address' that simply leads the customer back to the previous page, with their address details filled in, that they can change if they want to. (On this page, in the 'Shipping Method' box, are product weights in the UPS and FedEx options - product weights need to be removed from all customer displays - please see SUB-PROJECT 3 above). On the next page, headed 'Payment Information' there is a similar problem: there is a 'Billing Address' box with the message "Please choose from your address book where you would like the Invoice to be delivered to" with a button link labelled 'Change Address'. Again, I would like this message and link to be removed. The message could be replaced by 'Please check your billing address carefully - change if incorrect. This address is the only address we can send your order to' with a button below labelled 'Change Address' that simply leads the customer back to the beginning of the Checkout process,i.e. the page where they enter their name and address, with their address details filled in, that they can change if they want to. At this point, the Customer will select their Payment Method (in our case, [login to view URL] or PayPal) which takes them to an 'Order Confirmation' page, which is the final stage before they are actually transferred to the relevant payment processor on their secure servers. This page displays both a delivery address and a billing address, which will be the same. We would like to eliminate one of these addresses, under a combined heading 'Shipping / Billing Address'. The 'Edit' links currently on this page for Shipping Method, Payment Method, and Products are fine, but the 2 'Edit' links for the delivery and the billing addresses should be reduced to 1 'Edit' link that leads the Customer back to the beginning of the Checkout process,i.e. the page where they enter their name and address, with their address details filled in, that they can change if they want to. A further change that needs to be made on this page is that the Sub Total figure comes after the Shipping Cost figure - the SubTotal should be the cost of all the goods added up, with the Total amount being the SubTotal amount + Shipping costs. SUB-PROJECT 5 Change the emails received by the Customer at various stages of order processing, account setup, password reminders, etc. The emails I have seen are pretty dreadful, and we would want to re-word these so they are more informative and friendly. You would need to supply us with all the possible emails the current software can generate, then we will send these back to you the way we want them worded. SUB-PROJECT 6 In the Create Account process, we want to make changes to the 'Subscribe to Newsletter' option. This is in the [login to view URL] file I think. When a Customer wants to create an account for themselves on our system, they are taken to a page headed 'My Account Information'. Here, they can enter name, address, etc. and set up their personal password. Under 'Options' there is 'Newsletter' with a check box. We want this Option removing completely, as we are using [login to view URL] to manage our mailing list, and we have their signup form elsewhere on our site.