box model
For future reference - there’s a lot of great info about how the different browsers handle widths, padding, margins, and borders on this page -Box Model Hack - css-discuss. And then I realized that it shouldn’t be as hard as I thought because the box model issues were for IE5/5.5. I fixed most of my problems by adding the doctype in the pages. LOL, I’m such a dork! 
Also read some of the following pages:
chrispoole.com: more recent browsers
DHTMLKitchen: Doctype, Measurements, and Standards
