Pleease help!! [Div Positioning]

I am almost ready to give up. I can't seem to find proper help nowhere on the internet regarding this thing and this is my last try. I need a CLEAR and proper explaination. Please consider that i'm a newbie on div positioning.

------------
| Header |
------------
l |ccccccccc|r
e |cccccccc|i
f |content|g
t |cccccccc|h
|ccccccccc|t
------------
footer
------------


That is a rough sketch of my web page layout. Bear with me here.

My header is fixed. I do not need that to move. I need the the left and right div borders to get longer as more content is entered AND as the content div also lengthens to occupy text, they should all PUSH the footer down. I need this to happen in both netscape and IE.

Could someone here please help me with this?

The stylesheet: (header not included)


#left {
position:absolute;
left:0px;
top:186px;
width:23px;
height:631px;
background-image: url(images/left.gif);
margin-bottom: -650px;
padding-bottom: 5px;
}

#content {
position:relative;
left:23px;
top:186px;
width:750px;
height:631px;
background-color:#FFFFFF;
margin-bottom: -675px;
}

#right {
position:absolute;
left:773px;
top:186px;
width:27px;
height:631px;
background-image: url(images/right.gif);
margin-bottom: -650px;
padding-bottom: 5px;
}

#footer {
position:relative;
left:0px;
top:817px;
width:800px;
height:47px;
}


Could someone PLEASE explain to me what the CSS settings are to get this done?
Any help would be greatly appriciated!

You need to float the left an right columns (search for CSS float on google) Then either float the center or use margins to position it.

on the footer you need:



http://www.google.com/search?q=3+column ... 8&oe=utf-8