1) I tried adding a text field and text area to one of our Content types - an "Article". But I am not seeing any new content / text after I add some to one of the articles. What do I have to do to see those text changes in my page? Is there some kind of caching issue here?

Check out permissions in user settings, you have to allow users to see cck fields.

2) I've made some changes to a template php file (and associated CSS). But those changes aren't being reflected in the pages served. Is there a caching issue here? Or does some file(s) need to be re-indexed?

go to performance in the site configuration menu and clear the cache. Also install the theme developer module to ensure your tpls are gtting picked up OK

3) With Drupal's content editor is there a way to do like here: http://digitalrhino.projectpath.com/projects/2836732/thumbnails/27705922

make an image to span 2 fields
have text split into 2 columns

You probably want fckeditor or www.drupal.org/project/wysiwyg

4) How do you manage the homepage that Drupal uses? I had a user delete the homepage and now I need to recreate it. But this doesn't seem to be a straightforward process.

/node should be a normal 'river of content' view. I would worry more about users being able to change the homepage atm than recreating it.

Thanks for any help
Tim

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