First the easy one, to go straight to your store, you can put this in your index.php file (and delete the index.html file)
Code:
header("Location: customer/home.php");
Second, all of your templates are under the skin1 folder. If you go to the Webmaster Mode, start webmaster view and then click the link to open a new window for the customer area in your admin area you can simply scan down the links in the popup window and it will hilite the areas in your template, then you just click on the link and presto, it will pop up the template you want to change.
For this example, your bottom.tpl file to remove the link to the notice all together.
Every piece of your design can be completely manipulated to look how you want it to, it just depends on how adventurous you get
