I'm lost

I'm new to the TeamPhotoShop Formum and new to PhotoShop it self. I'm using PhotoShop 5 (soon to have 7 on Window 98.

I found your wonderful site from the SitePoint forum and I must say I'm pretty impressed with it. However I'm having a problem with one of your tutorials, actually two of them and wondering if someone could help me out.

The first is in Cool Techniques "Using selections to add a highlight" (orange sphere). I'm at step 3 and trying to select a wedge section on the right side of the sphere for subtraction by holding down the alt key and dragging but all I seem to get is a oval to another sphere with no wedge shaped section. I have the round marquee tool selected.

The second problem is in text effects ""That famous aqua text but a little different." Here I'm at step 3 again, something with those 3's eh? I'm working on my gel layer (its made)and I'm told that its not to be selected and then I'm to Blur>Gaussian Blur it but instead it says "Could not complete the Gaussian Blur command because the selected area is empty." I have tried a few different things but to no avail.

I'm a newbie at this and the first to admit it and I hope you don't get frustrated with my silly questions, and I'm sure I'll have plenty more in the near future. But again they say "the only silly question is the one that wasn't asked".

Thank you for your time. Its a really nice site. Five Star.

I think the second problem with the gel is that your not selescting that layer before bluring it.... ctrl,click on layer to seleect it all..Ive aint done those gel buttons yet but i think that may be right.

OK never mind that reply i think.......

Are you trying to apply thew blur to a new layer by itself? cuz you cant do that....

Could it be in the channels that you are to be blurring it?

I dont know i dont really like to use aqua crap it looks ugly to me...